The Birchwood Twin(s): Peaches and Powers
by imaginarytoon1
Summary: (Main Plot) So far, Doom is nowhere to be found by the Twins or Toons. But when the Twins discover a prophetic riddle, they begin to experience the events that have been described. Will the end of riddle come with good results or will there be more consequences? (Subplot) Meanwhile, the Toon Patrol and Roger Rabbit struggle to be friends after making amends with each other.
1. Chapter 1: Making Discoveries

**Chapter One**

**(There won't be any 'due date' for this story because this will take a while. Just a heads up, this story will be a combination of **_**Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, **_**and **_**Matilda: The Musical**_**. **

**(Kind of) Like the previous story, **_**The Birchwood Twin(s) in The Wizard of Oz, Peaches and Powers **_**is going to be a rather 'musical' story**__**but it probably won't have as many songs that will be performed by the characters. **

**I'm sorry if I'm not making any sense with this notice.**

**Anyway, enjoy this story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS:** **I'm not trying to ruin any of your childhood memories as I write these stories with some parts that have been changed a little bit. I just have a very bad habit of spicing things up and add things that just come to me.)**

**Beatrice:**

A few months passed and so far, I'm recovering from my long on-and-off (sometimes I feel like the break is going by slowly and sometimes it's coming and going too quickly) Christmas and New Year break. Christmas was good. I met up with some distant relatives and got some really nice presents (a piano songbook as thick as a _Harry Potter _book, a blue sweater about four sizes too big, and a pocket tape recorder) when Christmas day came. On New Year's Eve, I stayed up until one thirty in the morning, not because of drinking too many sodas, but because I was still wide awake after playing _Celebration _on the piano as soon as the first day of January came.

Not only that I'm recovering from my holiday break, I'm also recovering from some unfortunate events that happened at school. Like three weeks after the first day of school, Angie stole my homework one day and wrote her name on my advanced algebra worksheets. Luckily, my math teacher, Mr. Shard, caught Angie and gave her a two-month detention sentence. When October came, my grades were rigged by one of my ex-boyfriends (I'm saying that he somehow hacked into the school grading website and started to change my straight 'A' pluses to 'F's.). Dad had to take action on that and my ex had to go to the juvenile detention center, due to hacking into the school's grading website and for beating up six students. Then, finally, a girl student who I didn't even know hid an inappropriate magazine and a beer bottle in my backpack. She, too, was also taken to the juvenile detention center for lying to the principal and doing 'second-degree' harassment on juniors (I'm a junior) and seniors.

But despite of those unfortunate events, I, pretty much, enjoyed the fall semester of my school year.

Final exams were pieces of cake for me. 'A's on every single exam and the holiday break is my reward for hard work, perseverance, and accountability.

The only weird thing that I was constantly thinking about since the conclusion of my journey in Oz is Judge Doom. Yen Sid specifically told me that Tommy and I need to keep our eyes peeled for the evil judge and make sure that we don't give ourselves up or let our fear and anger get out of control or Judge Doom will come to life as somebody else and try to take over the world by taking our hearts away.

Yeah, it's really crazy and scary.

But the whole destiny thing is also very exciting despite of how crazy and scary it's going to be as time passes.

Anyway, as I was walking to the kitchen, I heard Dad talking.

"Now, Scarlett, I want you to be reasonable with Beatrice. You know the new rule of this house." He said.

_What's going on? _I thought.

I walked away from the kitchen and, silently, took off running to my parents' room. Their conversation grew louder as I was getting closer and closer.

Finally, after a few seconds of running, I stopped when I was close to the door frame but not so close that Mom and Dad can see me eavesdropping on them.

"The new rule was that once Beatrice and Tommy are old enough, when I go out of town, they're in charge of the household." Dad said.

_I don't what kind of rule that Dad just made right there, _I thought, _but that sounds like a good and bad rule._

"But why do Beatrice and Tommy have to be in charge?" Mom whined.

"Remember when Beatrice stopped talking after Kaitlyn died? Remember the way you would reject Beatrice's kindness and cooperation every time she would try to make you happy?" Dad asked. "Do you also remember the way you would always abuse Beatrice with your words and she had a hard time talking to you? I don't like the way that you've been treating Beatrice and how you're not always very responsible with the way that you're spending your money and how you are ignoring her suggestions that are supposed to help you have a better mother-daughter relationship."

_Hold on. Back up. _I thought. _Dad, are you saying that after I suggested to Mom about going to the book clubs and going to see Mr. Anderson, she doesn't go to any of those places? But wait. If Mom didn't try out the book clubs, then why does her vocabulary sound…much better?_

"Now, Scarlett," Dad began, "I will be gone for a couple of months and I expect you to be on your best behavior until I come back."

I gasped in my head and I ran away from the room.

I don't know why Dad is going away for a couple of months but I just hope that it's nothing serious or bad. I hope that he's not filing for a divorce and is beginning to look for another home and job.

_Please, Daddy. _I thought. _Don't file for divorce. Even though Mom and I have a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, I can still try to get along with her, one way or another._

As I was about to walk back to the kitchen and pretend that nothing happened, Tommy ran up to me in worry.

"Tommy, what's the matter?" I asked. "What's going on?"

"SMOKE!" He replied. "THERE'S SMOKE IN ONE OF YOUR DESK DRAWER!"

I gasped in shock and Tommy took off running down the hall that led us to our bedrooms. I followed him and I was really scared and confused.

"I know that you won't do this sort of thing but…" I began as I followed and caught up with Tommy. "…you weren't playing with any matches in my room, were you?"

"No, I wasn't playing with any matches." Tommy replied as we arrived at my bedroom.

As soon as we entered my room, I gasped in horror after spotting the sight of smoke slithering out of one of my desk drawers.

I ran towards the desk and I opened the drawer. I saw that Genie's lamp was having smoke coming out the spout and it (the smoke) slithered through the crack of the lamp.

"How long was this lamp smoking?" I asked.

"I don't know!" Tommy exclaimed. "I was just coming back from the laundry room and when I passed by room, my attention was caught-!"

"_TAKE OFF THE LID!"_A voice shouted.

Tommy and I looked at each other in surprise.

"DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?" We asked each other in unison. "No, I didn't say a word."

"_HEY, TAKE OFF THE LID OF THE LAMP!" _The voice shouted from…the inside of the lamp.

Immediately, I took the lamp out of the drawer and placed it on my desk. After closing the desk drawer, I took the lid off of the lamp, hoping that the smoke would stop coming out of the lamp.

Unfortunately, the smoke didn't stop. It began to crescendo into a thick cloud of smoke that began to snake its way out of the lamp. The smoky cloud slithered towards me and Tommy and it began to surround us as it continued to get thick and made its way up to our heads.

"What's going on?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know!" I said.

Then, the smoke continued to get thicker and thicker and all of the sudden, an explosion rang out.

Tommy and I found ourselves floating in a pitch black void of space and I felt a strong wind blowing through my hair. The WHOOOOOSH sound of the wind echoed as it blew harder and harder.

_What is this place? _I thought.


	2. Chapter 2: The Meeting

**Chapter Two**

**(Shout-out to graywolf77: Thanks again for your suggestion! It really helped.)**

**Tommy:**

"_Beatrice? Tommy_?" Yen Sid's voice echoed in the black void. "_Can you hear me?"_

"Yes, sir." Tommy and I replied in unison.

Then, the wind stopped blowing and I felt like I was standing on something that's not beneath my feet.

Tommy gasped.

"Beatrice, look!" He exclaimed softly.

"Look where?" I asked.

"In front of you! Look!"

I turned my head to where Tommy wanted me to look. To my surprise and awe, I saw a toon skull glowing a very bright white light. Then, the light began to grow bigger and it slowly began to expose a room with beige stone walls, a table with the skull, four books full of spells (I believe), a staircase, a bookshelf with more books and papers, and a bottle of ink with a quill pen in it. On the walls on my right were two hanging blue drapes and something tells me that there's something hidden behind them.

Anyway, at the table were Yen Sid (with his arms spread out, which indicates that he was making the glowing light expand) and Smarty, Greasy, Wheezy, Psycho, Stupid, Flasher, Slimy, and Sleazy.

Then, Yen Sid does a double-hand motion that ceased the glowing inside the skull.

"Sorry about the lamp, you two." Yen Sid said. "That sort of thing is really not something that I would try out but I had to get your attention somehow."

"It's all right, sir." Tommy said.

Psycho giggled a little bit and Sleazy said, "Shh."

"The main idea of bringing you two hear was because of two things." Yen Sid said to me and Tommy.

"What are those two things?" I asked.

Yen Sid glared at Smarty.

"Smarty still has doubts that Judge Doom was going dip him and the others after his destruction." He said.

I crossed my arms and glared at Smarty.

"I still don't think that Doom's going to dip us." He said.

"Smarty, whenever I say something like that, I'm actually very serious about it." I replied. "And I actually know some villains who actually got rid of their henchmen after achieving their schemes."

"Beatrice is right." Tommy said. "You really have to believe her."

Smarty shook his head no.

"Still not going to 'be-gleave' her." He said.

"It's 'believe'." I replied.

Then, Smarty gave me a death glare.

"The second reason that I brought you and Tommy here was I wanted you to demonstrate your first spell to convince the Toon Patrol." Yen Sid said.

My eyes widened.

"What kind of spell?" I asked.

"Your first spell is…" Yen Sid began and aimed his left palm to the curtains on my right. The curtains open up with a WHOOSH and they expose the magic mirror from _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. _"…to summon the magic mirror."

I nodded.

"All right." I said. "And what do Tommy and I have to do to summon the mirror?"

Yen Sid takes out a small sheet of paper and quickly writes something down with the ink and quill pen. After fanning some air on the paper for a few brief seconds, he handed me the paper.

"Look over that a few times." Yen Sid said. "Then, one or both of you walk up to the mirror and recite the spell loudly and clearly. Once the mirror is awakened, ask him about what would happen if Doom completed his destruction of all Toons. Be sure to rhyme while you're talking to the mirror and address him as 'Magic Mirror' after waking him."

Tommy and I and we looked over the written spell. I got it down after reading it six times. I gave Tommy a few more minutes and he memorized the spell after reading it ten times.

"Ready?" Tommy asked.

"Ready when you are." I replied.

Calmly, Tommy and I walked to the Magic Mirror. As we walked the light was dimmed a little bit and I glanced around the room nervously. My attention was brought back to the Mirror when a little light was exposed at the bottom of its oval frame.

I cleared my throat and Tommy and I said to the Mirror (clearly, loudly, and boldly),

"_SERVANT OF THE MAGIC MIRROR, _

_ COME FROM THE FARTHEST SPACE!"_

Then, I felt wind blowing hard on my legs.

"_THROUGH WIND AND THE LIGHT,_

_ WE SUMMON THEE!_

_ SPEAK!"_

Flames began to build inside the mirror and thunder boomed loudly.

"_LET US SEE YOUR FACE!" _Tommy and I concluded.

A few seconds later, the flames inside the mirror die down and an eerie mask is exposed. It was floating in the middle of the mirror.

"What wouldst thou know, my masters?" Magic Mirror asked.

In my head, I gulped.

"Magic Mirror on the wall," I began, "what would happen to the Toon Patrol if Doom had completed Toon Town's fall?"

The Toon Patrol and Yen Sid walked up to where Tommy and I were standing as the Mirror spoke.

"The fall of Toon Town would be an event of tragedy." Magic Mirror replied in a monotone voice. "Behold, here are some deaths that I see."

The floating mask disappears and Magic Mirror displays Psycho aiming the water cannon of Doom's 'Dip-Mobile' at Roger and Jessica (who were tied over the floor of the Acme Factory) as a vision. The green and yellow steaming substance of evil is shot out of the water cannon and it hits Roger and Jessica. They both scream in pain and terror as they quickly melt into puddles of ink. I gasped silently at that horrible sight and I watched myself getting ready to cry in the mirror after seeing Roger and Jessica die in the vision.

Doom smiles evilly and sadistically as he aimed his eyes at me, Eddie, and Tommy.

"It's time, Sergeant." He said to Smarty in a low voice. "Time for those pitiful weaklings to meet their demise."

"Got it, Judge." Smarty said and clicked the hammer of the pistol.

"Beatrice, Tommy, run for your lives!" Eddie exclaimed. "Don't worry about me! Just run!"

Tommy and I reluctantly ran away from Eddie, Smarty, and Doom.

"Hurry, Sergeant!" Doom exclaimed. "They're getting away!"

Tommy and I were at least ten feet away when we heard the sounds of the pistol going off with a BANG, Eddie exclaiming in pain, and Eddie falling down to the ground.

"RUN, BEATRICE, RUN!" Tommy exclaimed.

Then, I heard another gun shot.

Tommy exclaimed in pain and he fell to the ground.

I skidded to a halt and exclaimed, "TOMMY!"

I ran back to him and before I knew it, Smarty was standing right in front of me and aimed his pistol in at my forehead. My eyes were constantly aiming at Smarty's evil grin and the muzzle of the pistol and I felt a drop of sweat running down my head as I panted really hard.

A flash of light covered the violence as the BANG rang out.

Then, the vision transitions to the deaths of the Toons in Toon Town. Toons were screaming, melting, and some even dragged themselves on the ground. Those who were trying to run away were immediately being joined with the melting Toons and buildings. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest after seeing a Toon woman and her five kids getting shot by a round of Dip.

The vision transitions to a quick time lapse of the construction of the freeway. After thirteen seconds, the time lapse stopped when the construction of the freeway was completed with cars, stores, restaurants, and flashing billboards that were advertising upcoming trends.

Then, Smarty, Wheezy, Greasy, Psycho, and Stupid are found walking on a grassy hill that was by a busy road and Doom was standing next to a trash can with a satisfied grin on his face.

"All right, Judge." Smarty said. "We helped you 'con-quited' your plans on the freeway and we would to like to have our reward."

Greasy, Wheezy, Psycho, and Stupid nodded in agreement.

Doom exposed another smile before reaching to the top of his collar of the black judge's outfit and pulling off…a rubber mask, exposing his red-eyed Toon self.

"YOU'RE A TOON!" Wheezy exclaimed.

Then, Doom took off his right glove.

Instead of a regular Toon hand, Doom's right hand was replaced by a golden whip and he lassos the Toon Patrol.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Smarty and Greasy exclaimed as the loop of the whip tightened.

Doom drags the Toon Patrol down the hill and walks down for a few seconds. He stops in front of giant metal vat full of steaming Dip and he grinned another evil grin.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Smarty, Wheezy, and Greasy exclaimed in unison.

"I'm giving you your reward." Doom replied in a building high, squeaky voice. "Your ETERNAL REWARD."

The five toon weasels gasped in horror.

"YOU'VE BEEN USING US?!" Smarty exclaimed.

But Doom doesn't answer.

He quickly throws the Toon Patrol into the vat of Dip and they all screamed in extreme pain. They all melted into puddles of ink.

The vision ends there and the room no longer had the lights dimmed.

My heart was pounding and my eyes were as wide as sugar plums.

That was the most disturbing thing that I've ever seen. It looked more disturbing than that creepy movie _Donnie Darko._

I turned my head to Smarty. He looked really traumatized and he was biting his lips inside his mouth. Smarty was also staring at the mirror in shock.

"Are you convinced, Smarty?" I asked.

He aimed his eyes at me and said,

"You were right, Birchwood. You were right."


	3. Chapter 3: Random Guesses

**Chapter Three**

**(Okay, I have to say that the second chapter was probably one of the most dramatic chapters that I've written and to tell you the truth, I wasn't very confident with the part where Beatrice had to speak in rhymes while talking to the Magic Mirror.**

**If some parts don't make sense to you, I'm really sorry. I try to describe things the way I see them.**

**I'm sorry for not posting anything for the past couple of days. I was really busy with some things, I fell asleep while writing this chapter, and I am still writing an excerpt for AnonymousZGirl's story, **_**The Lost Birchwood.**_

**Anyway, here is the third chapter!**

**Enjoy this chapter and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: graywolf77: Thanks for sending me another suggestion!**

**PPS: AnonymousZGirl, if you're reading this, I think that I'll have to pick some days on when I'm going to write an excerpt for your upcoming chapters because I can't work on two posts on FanFiction on the same day. **

**On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I'll write an excerpt for **_**The Lost Birchwood. **_**On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll write a chapter for **_**Peaches and Powers.**_

**On the weekends, I'll work on either an excerpt for **_**The Lost Birchwood, **_**a chapter for **_**Peaches and Powers**_**, or both.**

**If I'm gone for a tennis tournament and if I'm not going to make it back home on time, then I'll PM you because usually after a tennis tournament, I get really tired.)**

**Beatrice:**

"I didn't see that coming on the Mirror." Greasy said after seeing that horrible vision of an alternate future. "I'm glad that we didn't wipe Toon Town off the face the Earth."

"Some futures have very disturbing and inevitable endings." Yen Sid said. "But an alternate future gives away warnings and chances."

I nodded my head in agreement.

"I'm going to keep that in mind." I mumbled.

Then, I realized something else.

I looked at the Magic Mirror.

"Magic Mirror on the wall," I began, "Are there any other events that'll happen after Toon Town's fall?"

The floating mask came back on the glass of the mirror.

"Laughter will be ceased and entertainment will be gone." Magic Mirror replied in a monotone voice. "A laugh from every person will be replaced with a yawn."

Then, the mask disappears and displays another vision of an alternate future.

Outside of the gates of the Maroon Cartoons Studio, animators, painters, layout artist, and everybody else who would supervise, direct, produce the cartoons, including many other Toons, were standing in front of the gates with sad looks on their faces. A man, who looked like R.K. Maroon, walked up to the gates with a silver chain with a lock attached to it. He wraps the chain around the two thick bars of the gate and loops one end of the chain in the shackle of the lock before clicking the lock shut with a loud CLICK.

"Uh, why did that man lock the gates?" Stupid asked.

I looked at him.

"That man was locking the gates because Maroon Cartoons Studio went out of business." I replied.

"Why?" Stupid and Psycho asked in unison.

Wheezy, Greasy, and Smarty rolled their eyes in irritation.

"If y'all completed Judge Doom's plan on wiping Toon Town off the face of the Earth, then that's what would happen to the Maroon Cartoons Studio." Tommy replied. "There are Toons in Toon Town who act for a living and to keep the bread on the table. Without those Toons, then there wouldn't be any more cartoons for anyone to watch."

I nodded.

"And without Toons and their cartoons, then all of the workers would lose their jobs and their homes. Without the money, there wouldn't be anything to keep anyone entertained." I added.

Yen Sid nodded in agreement.

"It's exactly what Beatrice and Tommy said to the eight of you." He said to the weasels. "Unfortunate things will happen to both Toons and humans if Toon Town was destroyed by Doom."

Every weasel began to exchange glances with one another.

"We would be dipped…" Slimy said, repeating over what we just discussed.

"And humans wouldn't be entertained…" Sleazy said.

"Now I get it." Smarty said. "If Toon Town was 'striped' off the face of the Earth, that'll not only affect Toons but humans, too. It all makes sense."

I nodded in satisfaction but in my head, I thought,

_It's 'wiped', not 'striped', Smarty_.

"But the question is: Why would Doom want to destroy Toon Town and build a freeway? Is there a reason?" Tommy asked.

Yen Sid looked at Tommy.

"There is very little information about Judge Doom's past." He said. "I don't have a lot of information about him but I do know this. Doom can be revived by anger or fear that people don't control very well and he can be a living nightmare if you interact with him."

"Agreed." Tommy and I replied in unison.

Then, Tommy snapped his fingers in realization.

"What is it, Tommy?" I asked.

"How did Judge Doom make the Toon Patrol his henchmen?" Tommy asked.

"I think it's something that Smarty should answer."

Yen Sid, Tommy, Wheezy, Sleazy, Stupid, Psycho, Slimy, Flasher, Greasy, and I looked at Smarty.

"Doom was very 'per-vasive'." He said.

_Persuasive. _I thought.

"Did he bribe you?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And, uh, when Doom wanted to destroy Toon Town, did you want to destroy Toon Town, too?" Tommy asked Smarty.

"Before the Magic Mirror gave us a preview of an alternate future, *cough, cough, cough*," Wheezy coughed, "we wanted to destroy Toon Town and wipe out the other Toons who live there."

Tommy gasped in shock.

"But why?" He exclaimed. "Why destroy your own home and your own species?"

"I think Judge Doom is the main reason why they wanted to destroy Toon Town." I said.

"What's HE got to do with US, Birchwood?" Smarty asked me and crossed his arms.

Wheezy gave me a glare and blew out a smoke cloud that took the shape of a skull with hollow but angry eyes. Then, he looked at Smarty.

"I wouldn't ask her that if I were you, Boss." Wheezy said.

…

**Tommy:**

Despite of what Wheezy said, Beatrice went right on ahead began to speak.

"I think it's because how the other Toons didn't take y'all seriously at first." She replied calmly. "Right when you formed your patrol, the other Toons would tease and make fun of you. Which reminds me, did y'all ignore any of the Toons who teased y'all?"

"We tried to but whatever they said bothered us a lot." Greasy replied.

"I think that Doom saw that as an advantage and as he began to commit his first crimes, he decided to make y'all his henchmen. Right when he was at the point of getting ready to hire y'all as his henchmen, Doom began to mention all of the things that the other Toons said to y'all. Moved by his reminders, y'all took them too seriously. That's when all of the Toons feared y'all-"

Wheezy coughed and said to Beatrice,

"Before you continue, can you use 'you' instead of 'y'all' when you're talking about us?"

"I'll try." Beatrice replied. "Anyway, as I was saying, every Toon was so scared of…you…that…you liked it like that. Then, as soon as Doom was done creating the Dip and began to plot the murder of Marvin Acme…wait a minute…didn't he offer something to…you…that sounds really nice…I mean, something way better than money while Doom was plotting Marvin Acme's murder?"

The five main members of the Toon Patrol (Smarty, Greasy, Wheezy, Psycho, and Stupid) exchanged glances with each other.

"Respect for us." Psycho replied to Beatrice.

"'Respect'?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Doom offered them to be the most respected Toons of all of Toon Town." Beatrice said. "He liked the way the Toon Patrol was treating that not only he offered a large amount of money, but gain respect from the Toons who were terrified of them." Then, I turned to the Toon Patrol. "And all of you accepted that…because of the money, the respect that…y'all…haven't had in a long time, and to save your skins, is that right?"

"That's right, _muchacha._" Greasy said.

I was really stunned.

"How did you know all of that?" I asked Beatrice. "It's like you knew the weasels for a really long time."

"I'm just guessing, that's all." She replied.

"And those are really good guesses." Yen Sid said.

"Seriously, how do you keep guessing the right guesses?" Sleazy asked. "That's really amazing!"

Beatrice just shrugs her shoulders.

"How can you not know?" A stunned Greasy asked. "You're really smart!"

Beatrice shakes her head.

"Not as smart as Yen Sid." She replied. "He's older than me and Tommy and usually it's the elder of the room who has the most knowledge."

Yen Sid chuckled a little bit.

"Beatrice, you and Tommy have as much knowledge as I do." He said. "In fact, you two are wise beyond your teen lives."

She rolled her eyes nervously.

"He's right." I said. "You're the quickest thinker that I've known in my life."

"Yeah?" Beatrice said. "Well, you're quick to tallying down the scores when it comes to sports."

(Don't ask Beatrice anything if you take her to a sports event. She doesn't pay attention to the scores very well. It's hard for Beatrice to do so when there's a lot going on.)

"See?" Greasy said. "You two are smart."

"Thanks, Greasy." Beatrice and I said in unison.

He smiled.

Then, Beatrice gasped in realization.

"I've been thinking about this for a while…since I accepted to help reform the Toon Patrol." She said. "Yen Sid, you told me that Tommy and I should keep our eyes peeled for Doom. What should we do if we spotted him, despite of being in a new form?"

"The best thing to do is pretend that you don't know that Doom is in disguise and notify me immediately without catching his attention." Yen Sid replied. "Then, try to find a way to overpower Doom."

"We'll remember that." I said.

Then, like a flickering light bulb, the Magic Mirror begins to flicker colors and electrical sparks.

We all turned our heads and watched the Mirror in shock.

"_A hero or leader is not judged by their looks,_

_But by their determination, bravery, sacrifice, knowledge from books_." The Mirror said with a hint of drama in his monotone voice.

"_A great power in both of our heroes comes from their minds._

_It's considered a mystery to people of all kinds._

_One hero must stop their villain with a song_,

_While the other goes on a journey, just a few days long._

_Explosions go 'BOOM',_

_Cymbals go 'CLASH',_

_Mischief and rebellion is what'll stop Doom!"_

Then, the colors and electrical sparks stop flickering and I was breathing really hard, as if I were hiding from a serial killer.

…..

**Beatrice:**

"What was that?" I asked.

"The Mirror picked up something that's going to happen later in the future." Yen Sid said. "This is probably the most interesting prediction that I've heard in my life."

"'Mischief and rebellion is what'll stop Doom'?" Tommy repeated. "Is the Mirror saying that there's something else besides Dip that can stop Doom from terrorizing or attempting to take over the world with his sadistic methods, punishments, and rules?"

"Sounds like it." I replied.

"Man, this is getting really crazy."

I nodded.

"Beatrice, Tommy," Yen Sid began, "I want you to have these."

He takes this book with a green and gold cover and lays it flat on his table. Yen Sid opens the book and takes out two silver dog tags one blue ball chains.

"What are these?" I asked.

"These are tags that'll provide protection if Doom tries to do anything harmful to you." Yen Sid replied. "You must never take these off as soon as you start a new day. The only time to take them off is when you're going to sleep."

Tommy and I grabbed our dog tags and I looked at the sketch on my tag. It was a brain with Yen Sid's hat on top, tilting slightly to its left.

"Go ahead and put them on." Yen Sid said.

I slid the dog tag on.

"Before I send you and Tommy back home, I'm going to make a few reminders." Yen Sid said. "Don't let your anger or fear spiral out of control, keep the dog tags around your neck, and keep your eyes peeled. Thank you for attending this meeting, Beatrice and Tommy."

"Thanks for telling us more about Judge Doom and thanks for the dog tags." I replied.

"Wish you luck."

Then, Yen Sid reaches into his right sleeve and takes three sparkly igneous rocks. He slams them down on the ground and they explode as they hit the ground.

Suddenly, the room grows dark again and Yen Sid and the Toon Patrol disappear with the darkness while Tommy and I float in the middle of a black void of space.

Then, as if a trapdoor just opened from underneath our feet, Tommy and I fall down and screamed. As we fell, a wind began to blow, giving me goose bumps on my body.

"This is some exit, Tommy!" I exclaimed.

"I know, right? This is really crazy!" Tommy replied.

Then, we suddenly found ourselves in my room and landed on my bed with two hard THUDs.


	4. Chapter 4: Essays and New Schools

**Chapter Four **

**(Man, oh, man. It's my second week of going back to school and I'm already worn out. **

**But I still try to manage to find the time to write chapters to y'all and writing excerpts for AnonymousZGirl's **_**The Lost Birchwood. **_**So far, it's going great.**

**I'm sorry if I'm taking too long on these chapters and I'm sorry for not posting this chapter on Tuesday. I was in a really bad mood and I suddenly just stopped thinking.**

**AnonymousZGirl, sorry for not PM'ing you an excerpt on Wednesday. I was really tired and I was in a really bad mood. I'll get back to work on the excerpts as soon as things settle down a little bit. **

**Anyway, here is this chapter.**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Beatrice:**

"That was a really interesting meeting." Tommy said.

"To me, it was both unusual and interesting." I replied.

"One thing from the meeting that I'm not going to forget is the Mirror's riddle."

I nodded with an uneasy look on my face.

"A hero or leader is not judged by their looks…" I said, repeating on what the Mirror said.

"But by their determination…" Tommy repeated as well.

"…bravery…"

"…sacrifice…"

"…knowledge from books."

"A great power in both of our heroes comes from their minds." I continued.

"It's considered a mystery to people of all kinds." Tommy continued.

"One hero must stop their villain with a song."

"While the other goes on a journey, just a few days long."

"Explosions go 'BOOM'!"

"Cymbals go 'CLASH'!"

"MISCHIEF AND REBELLION IS WHAT'LL STOP DOOM." Tommy and I concluded in unison.

My heart was pounding really loudly after that conclusion.

"I don't see how a song can stop a villain." Tommy said.

"You know riddles, Tommy." I replied. "They say some pretty weird things."

"Like that 'four legs in the morning' riddle?"

"Yeah but THAT riddle had metaphors. The riddle that we just heard was some sort of prophecy or something like that…without any metaphors."

"And is the riddle that we just heard really talking about you and me, Beatrice?" Tommy asked.

I nodded with another uneasy look on my face.

"I think so, Tommy." I replied.

Tommy made a noise that was a combination of a frustrated sigh and groan.

"I thought only stuff like that happens in books." He said. "I don't see why things from fictional works have a tendency to come into real life and mess things up."

"Stuff like that happens." I replied.

"But what did the riddle mean by 'a great power'?"

At that moment, someone knocks on my bedroom door.

"Come in." I called.

The door opens and Dad walks into the room.

"Hey, y'all." He said.

"Hey, Daddy." I replied.

"What's up, Dad?" Tommy asked.

"I came here to talk to you two." Dad replied.

"What about?"

Dad, Tommy, and I sat down on the edge of my bed.

"I'm going on a business trip with some of my friends and I'll be gone for a couple of months." Dad said. "And you two are in charge until I come back."

"Okay." I replied.

"Make sure that your momma goes to see Mr. Anderson and…make sure she doesn't do anything that the three of us wouldn't."

"Like what?" Tommy asked.

I looked at him with a confused look on my face.

"Remember when Dad used to stick around before he was busy with three jobs?" I asked. "And remember when Mom invited this one guy and he stayed with us for three long weeks?"

Tommy thought over on what I just said and then, he asked,

"Didn't that guy's name start with a 'P'?"

"'Crazy Percy' is what I call him." I said. "And yes, his name begins with 'P'…just without the 'crazy'."

"Make sure that your momma doesn't hang out that we don't know." Dad reminded us.

"Birchwood's Honor." Tommy and I said in unison and held our right hands up, as if we were making a vow.

'Birchwood's Honor' is like 'Scout's Honor' but if you were in my house or if you were a Birchwood, like me and Tommy, and if you're making a solemn promise, you would have to say 'Birchwood's Honor' so that a Birchwood can trust you with the promise that you are intending on keeping. Mom doesn't like that but Tommy and I say it when we're talking with Dad.

Anyway, Dad smiled.

"I'm glad that y'all are my kids." He said.

Then, Dad gave me and Tommy a great big hug.

"Be good, you two." He told us.

"We will." I replied.

After that, Dad got up and he walked out of my room.

Thirteen seconds later, Dad came back with a sheet of paper in his hand.

"I'm glad that I didn't forget." He said. "Beatrice, you will be going back to school two weeks later."

I became really confused and concerned.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Oh, no, no. Nothing's wrong." Dad replied.

"What is it?"  
"When your fall semester ended, I've been thinking that if things didn't really work out, I was going to have you transferred to another school."

"Does that mean that we have to move?" Tommy asked.

"No." Dad said. "The school is only ten minutes away."

Tommy nodded his head.

"Anyway, after what happened in the fall, when some students gave you unwanted trouble, I began to think about getting you transferred to another school so that you won't have to face those problems again." Dad said to me.

"Okay." I replied.

"I checked in with a teacher who teaches at that school and she told me that she's looking forward to seeing you after we get the papers submitted."

"The papers are submitted already, right?"

"Yes, they are. It takes a few weeks for them to get approved."

"What's the teacher's name?" I asked.

"Miss Honey." Dad replied. "She's an English, math, and music teacher."

_Hmm. _I thought. _This is getting really interesting._

Dad handed me the sheet of paper and I unfolded it.

"**ZELKOVA EDUCATIONAL-INSTITUTE," **the heading said.

"**BIGGER THAN CRUNCHEM HALL BUT SMALLER THAN A UNIVERSITY!**

** IS YOUR CHILD ALWAYS MAKING GOOD GRADES?**

** IS HE/SHE QUICK TO THINKING AND SOLVING PROBLEMS?**

** THIS IS THE SCHOOL FOR YOUR SON AND/OR DAUGHTER!**

** CALL THIS NUMBER RIGHT NOW AND YOU'RE TWO WEEKS AWAY TO SIGNING A GREAT DEAL FOR YOUR CHILD!**

***This school allows students from K-12****th**** grades to be taught."**

That was really interesting.

"Miss Honey also said that a lot of the students are a lot like you and Tommy." Dad said.

"Like us? How?" Tommy and I asked in unison.

"They can see the things that others can't."

I gasped.

"Are you serious?" I asked with excitement in my voice.

"Wow!" Tommy exclaimed. "That's really good news!"

_I have a feeling that I'm going to have a swell time at this new school. _I thought.

"Now, I'm really excited." I said.

"I know that you're going to like this school, Beatrice." Dad said to me. "A few adjustments and you'll get used to it."

I just smiled. I was so excited that I couldn't do anything but smile.

Then, something went DING-DING!

"Just got an email from your English teacher, Tommy." Dad said after pulling out his phone. "He said that your essay, the one about comparing Roald Dahl's books with real life, was considered the best essay that he read over the break. Not only do you get a good grade but your teacher is giving you a ticket to England, where one of the books took place, and you'll be staying there for a few weeks."

Tommy's jaw dropped and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

_Lucky you, Tommy! _I thought.

"When do I leave for England?" Tommy asked.

"In three days." Dad replied. "You'll meet your teacher at the front of your school and a travel van will take you to the airport. After you come back from England, the van will bring you back here and you'll call your teacher after your arrival."

"Might want to write all of this down, Tommy." I said.

Tommy immediately ran out of my room with excitement. I can tell that he's getting ready for his trip and he's really excited.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

"Before I finish my packing, I would like to tell you something, Beatrice." Dad said. "No matter what other people think, you and Tommy are really special kids. Don't think that you're a nothing, Beatrice. You and Tommy are really unique kids and don't let anyone think that being different is wrong. Keep that in mind."

"I will." I said.

"All right."

Then, Dad kissed me on the top of my head.

"Be a good girl." He said.

I nodded.

Then, Dad left my room.

Well, this is really interesting.

First, Tommy and I get warped into a room, had a meeting with Yen Sid and the weasels, heard a strange riddle that talked about us, and now, we get more exciting news. Tommy gets to go to England and I'm going to a new school.

Seriously, this is the most excitement that I haven't had in a long time.

Now, I don't know what to do now.

I can't decide whether I should think about the excitement more, watch a movie with Steve Buscemi playing in it, draw, or play the piano. Or maybe…I can do all of those things.


	5. Chapter 5: Greasy and Yen Sid

**Chapter Five**

**(One part of the Magic Mirror's riddle just came true! **

"**While the other goes on a journey, just a few days long."**

**Tommy goes on a trip to England but there are more details about that coming up! I'm not going to spoil anything. The only thing that I have to say about that is: **

"**Just keep reading!" :D**

**Don't worry! More details of the riddle are coming up!**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: Again, I'm sorry for not posting this a couple of days earlier. I fell asleep while I was writing this chapter and I was really busy.**

**PPS: The person who drew Greasy isn't real. He's actually made up and I haven't found anything about the person who created Greasy and the other weasels. I'm not saying that you have to do this but if you find anything about the creators of the Toon Patrol, write it down in the comments or PM me. Thanks!)**

**Greasy:**

"Greasy, we need to talk." Yen Sid said.

"What about the others?" I asked.

"They will have to stand outside."

The others didn't hesitate and they immediately walked out of the room. I knew that things are going to get serious and this isn't a time to laugh, smile, goof off, or block out any bits and pieces of a conversation. How do I know? I had some experiences like this one when I was in the mafia (My first experience of having a serious conversation in the mafia wasn't a good one because I goofed off a lot back then.).

"I notice that you have been siding with Beatrice a lot." Yen Sid said.

"Is that a problem, sir?" I asked.

"No, Greasy. It's not really a problem. But what I'm concerned about is how you're behaving towards her and when you're not around Beatrice."

Why does Yen Sid sound like he does not trust me?

"I'm not hurting _muchacha._" I said. "I've been really friendly to her."

"I know that you're not hurting Beatrice." Yen Sid replied. "But what I'm saying is that I notice that you're in love with her."

In the mafia, my former boss always said that if someone who isn't a part of the mafia begins to question or intimidates you, what you have to do is lie in order to save yourself. But since lying just stopped working for me and since I began to respect the wisdom of the _muchacha, _I figured that I should tell the truth.

I nodded my head.

"Yes, sir." I replied with seriousness and honesty. "It's true that I'm in love with _muchacha._"

"Did you read the book that I sent you several months ago?" Yen Sid asked.

"Yes, sir, but just a little bit of it and since it has been a while, I would like to have it repeated to me so that I can jog my memory."

Yen Sid waved his hand for a brief second and an image of the Wicked Queen from _Snow White_ appeared on the Magic Mirror.

Okay, I knew that Yen Sid's book might've said something about the Wicked Queen but what was it?

"In the book," Yen Sid explained, "there was an explanation about the Wicked Queen transforming into a beautiful woman after she crossed the border of Toon Town and fell in love Gerald Watson, a human. He loved the Queen until he found out about her real identity, thus leaving to the Day of Madness."

The image of the Wicked Queen dissolves into a normal day in Toon Town. The sun was shining, traffic was crazy, and many of the Toons were either singing, running or walking around the streets, or dancing.

All of the sudden, a shadow began to loom over the buildings and the Toons in the mirror began to gasp in horror. They take out lanterns and began to wander around Toon Town like nothing happened. Then, the eyes on the faces of the Toons began to transform into eyes that are like Psycho's, spinning spirals that came in many different colors. I watched in horror when I saw the Toons in the mirror began to act like something else.

"Will that happen again if I continue to love _muchacha_?" I asked nervously.

"I thought that Toons were going to have another Day of Madness when I found out that you have been around Beatrice for a while." Yen Sid replied. "But after making observations and recounting the day that I had to give Beatrice and Tommy the T-324, I thought over the Day of Madness again. Since the Wicked Queen had nothing but darkness inside of her, that darkness came out of her heart and created the Day of Madness."

"And what does the Wicked Queen's darkness got to do with my relationship with _muchacha_?"

An image of _muchacha _appeared on the Mirror. She had a look on her face that made her look like she was staring out in to space.

"I observed Beatrice and Tommy after I gave them the T-324 and for a really long time, I saw that Beatrice would do nothing but good things." Yen Sid explained. "As time passed, I saw that there was purity, light, hope, honesty, justice, righteousness, kindness, and wisdom in her heart. After hearing that you were falling in love with Beatrice, I began to look up on your past. Although your creator, teen boy Javier, made himself a bad example, didn't tell you the differences between right and wrong, and abandoned you after things went wrong, you displayed very small signs of independence, kindness, which were very brief, and humor. I was really disappointed with you after I found out that you joined a mafia and murdered a lot of women, both Toon and human."

"But I changed after that." I said.

"You _tried _to change but it wasn't easy for you, Greasy. You still harassed women and you were constantly kicked, slapped, and beaten by those who knew those women and the women themselves. But it wasn't until Beatrice came to solve the murder of Marvin Acme when you actually changed."

I still remember the day when I met _muchacha _at the Acme Factory at the time when Acme was murdered.

…..

_ I was riding in the back of the paddy-wagon with Wheezy driving it to the Acme Factory. The siren was blaring really loudly. I hear a door burst open and I felt the impact of the door shake the paddy-wagon a little bit. Human voices were barely heard outside of the paddy-wagon. I bumped into the divider of the paddy-wagon as I felt it skid to a halt, swerving, and hit something else. I heard falling boxes and the blaring siren slowly ceasing its noisy whine._

_ "All right, yer mugs, fall out!" Boss exclaimed as we began to climb out of the paddy-wagon._

_ Psycho immediately leaped out of the back after opening the doors and Stupid blocked my path._

This is really dumb. _I thought. _I just want to look around for a brief second, get information on where that stupid rabbit is hiding, and watch him die in the Dip.

_Acting like I'm the top of the world, I stepped out of the back of the paddy-wagon and strolled away from it as I put my hands in my pockets._

_ "Did you find the rabbit?" Judge Doom asked._

_ "Don't worry, Judge! We got 'deformants' all over the city!" Boss exclaimed. "We'll find 'im."_

_ I waited for Judge Doom to give us orders on what to do while we have the time to wander around the factory like idiots and pretend to look for evidence. _

_ But instead of giving us orders, Judge Doom looked at something…or someone…that was right in front of him._

_ "You there!" Judge Doom called to the person._

_ Along with Boss, Wheezy, Psycho, and Stupid, I turned my head to my left and I saw…a _muchacha_ with very odd-looking clothes._

_ "Me?" The _muchacha_ mouthed and pointed to herself._

Oh, tenemos una niña vagando alrededor de la escena del crimen. _I thought._ Se parece a la clase de chica que tiene esa independencia.

_"Do you have any idea where the rabbit might be?" Judge Doom asked the _muchacha.

_In nervousness, the _muchacha_ glanced around the room. Although my eyes were a little narrowed, I cracked a smile and chuckled after _muchacha _shook her head in terror._

_ "Not much of a talker, is she, Boss?" I asked both Boss and Judge Doom._

_ My attention was brought back to Judge and _Señor_ Valiant._

_ "You wouldn't have any idea where the idea where the rabbit might be, Mr. Valiant?" Doom asked._

_ But an urge makes me bring my attention back to the _muchacha _and I watch her looking at the paddy-wagon._

_ I snuck over to the paddy-wagon and followed _muchacha. _I watch her looking up and down at the paddy-wagon like she was reading a news headline on a movie sheet in a movie theater._

_ When _muchacha _finally stopped and stared at the painted logo of our paddy-wagon, I smiled a little bit and said,_

_ "I see that you're admiring our car."_

_ She jumped in surprise and I laughed a little bit._

_ "Heh, heh, heh, heh. _Lo siento, chica. No era mi intención asustarte." _I said._

_ "*cough, cough*! He said," Wheezy began, "he said that he's sorry for scaring you."_

_ I immediately knew that _muchacha _was one of those independent but shy—_

"GREASY." Yen Sid exclaimed, making me snap out of my thoughts.

"Yes, sir?" I asked.

_Why did I began to daydream all of the sudden? _I thought.

"You zoned out a little bit." Yen Sid said. "What I said was: After you began to change, I began to notice that your heart began to get filled up with the power and purity from Beatrice's heart, causing you to change after you were things that Toons are usually not supposed to be. Because of that, two things came to me. One, if you do form a relationship with Beatrice, there would be no Day of Madness because of her heart being so pure. And two, I am beginning to change my mind about you and the other members of the Toon Patrol. I believe that Toons like you can change. I am going to drop all the charges that I gave to you and the others. The dog tags that you're wearing around your neck, the ones that display the actions that you committed in the sleepwalking incident, are gone now."

"Thank you, sir." I said.

"Before you leave, Greasy, I would like to tell you this and you must tell the other members of the Toon Patrol."

"What is it, sir?"

"You seem to take Beatrice's knowledge pretty seriously. You have been following her words of wisdom for a while and I'm proud of that. Since that I'm impressed with you right now, I would like you to learn from Beatrice and make sure that Judge Doom doesn't try to hurt her."

"Yes, sir. I'll do those things. I'll tell Boss and the others."

_I'm doing this because I love _muchacha _with all my heart. _I thought.


	6. Chapter 6: Atticus DuBois

**Chapter Six**

**(I really liked the other chapter that I typed. It's officially one of my favorite chapters that I've written in **_**The Birchwood Twin(s) **_**series. Do y'all have any favorite chapters from any of the stories in **_**The Birchwood Twin(s)? **_**Write any of your favorite chapters and the title of the story from the series in the comment box. There are no limits on your favorites and y'all can write as many as you want!**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Beatrice:**

Right now, I'm waking up after a long good night's sleep. My eyes were slowly opening up and I was breathing softly.

I began to think about what happened three days ago.

What happened three days ago?

I discovered that one part of the riddle just came true.

On the day that Tommy found out that he was going to England, it wasn't until I was in the living room, pulling out the DVD version of Armageddon, a movie that Steve Buscemi played in some time ago, when I realized that a part of the Magic Mirror's riddle just came true.

…_While the other goes on a journey, a few days long_. The Mirror's voice echoed in my head.

It seems that I'll be the one who will be stopping a villain with a song.

But how on Earth am I going to do that? I thought. Songs are usually made for entertainment purposes.

For three days, I've been thinking about the riddle. On a sheet of paper, I wrote down the Magic Mirror's riddle and on to the side, where the line 'While the other goes on a journey, a few days long' was located, I wrote this on the right side of the sheet of paper,

"**Tommy wrote an essay…best of many essays that his teacher read over the Christmas break…Tommy is going to England for a few days.**"

On those three days, Tommy and I kept the riddle a secret from anyone who doesn't have the gift of seeing and communicating with Toons. We didn't even tell our parents about the riddle because I think that Mom would think that we're out of our minds and Dad wouldn't really understand it.

I know that it's not really good to keep something a secret from my dad but I'm just not sure how he would react after hearing the riddle.

Now that I'm awake, I yawned for a brief second and I slipped off my bed. I didn't accidentally slip off. What I did was intentional. Anyway, after slipping off my bed, I stretched a little bit and got on my feet.

I walked to Tommy's room and I saw that his bed was made and his bedroom floor was littered with scraps of paper.

Now that Tommy's gone to England, I'm going to be alone with Mom for a few days and I have a feeling that things are going to get really crazy.

Just in case if things get too crazy, I walked to the window and locked it really good. I walked out of Tommy's bedroom and I locked the door. I'm doing that because of Crazy Percy staying with me, Tommy, and Mom and he slept in Tommy's room for three weeks instead of sleeping in either the guest bedroom or on the couch in the room. After Dad found Crazy Percy in Tommy's bed, he kicked him out but the stench from Crazy Percy remained on the sheets and covers of the bed of Tommy.

I'm locking up Tommy's bedroom just because I don't want to find a stranger in there. I would do the same to my window and bedroom when I'm running my errands in town and when I'm going to school. I certainly don't want to find a stranger—

"…This scrapbook contains many pictures of my long and miserable life…" I heard Mom say to someone in the living room.

_Oh no, you don't. _I thought. _I'm not allowing a stranger in my house._

(Call me a bad person if you want but how I am right is how I act and think when a stranger is in my house. When I was two, before I knew my aunts, uncles, and grandparents (even my great-grandparents), I thought that they were strangers until Dad talked about them. Ever since then, I made a rule in the house that if you met someone and if I haven't met them, you have to talk about the person at least more than two times. If you don't mention about the person more two times, then that's when I get really suspicious.)

I quietly walked to the living room and I saw…Mom…sitting with a stranger on the couch…and showing him pictures from the family scrapbook.

"Are those your children right there, baby?" The stranger asked.

_'Baby'? _I thought and leaned on the door frame with my arms crossed.

"Yes, those are my children, Atticus. Beatrice and Tommy, my twin children, my terrible twos." Mom replied.

I frowned.

"How old are they right now?" Atticus asked.

"They're both seventeen." Mom said.

_At least you got the age right. _I thought.

"Let me tell you about some things about Beatrice, if you're okay with that, honeydew." Mom said to Atticus.

_'Honeydew'? _I thought in disgust.

"Beatrice has been a thorn in my side since the day she's been born." Mom began. "When she was a year old, she learned how to take care of herself and she was nothing but a chatterbox. By the time she was two or five…somewhere around those two, Beatrice began to read at a college student level and after reading literally every book in this house, she wouldn't stop quoting stuff from Shakespeare and using big words in many of her sentences. A two or five year old child can't read or quote works from Shakespeare. They can't do that!"

_There is a possibility. _I thought.

"By the time Beatrice was three, she began to learn things that my ungrateful husband used when he was a cop and detective. She knew how to work a pistol (When I told y'all that I didn't know how to use a gun, I actually lied. I do know how to use it but I don't like the loud noise or how some of the guns give me a hard nudge after pulling the trigger.), solved a mystery in less than either three minutes or two weeks, and even learned to how to think like a cop, a criminal, and a detective." Mom continued.

"Sounds like you have a really talented daughter." Atticus said.

I narrowed my eyes and nodded my head.

"If you were me, my sweet potato, your life would be a nightmare." Mom said.

_Stop calling each other stupid and silly names made for bobo brains! _I thought.

"What makes you say that, baby?" Atticus asked.

"Beatrice treats and talks to me like I'm a child." Mom replied. "She's always telling me what to do and she never gives me the love or the things that I want."

"Oh, baby, a teenager can't do that to you."

"I know, right?"

"I have a son and he used to tell me what to do. Telling me that I can only get him the things that he likes, making me do his homework for him, and he even made me clean his messes. You know what I did? I knocked some sense into my son until something clicked in him and made him follow my lead."

"Oh, Atticus, if you were my husband, you would definitely be the person that I need to knock some sense into Beatrice."

_I don't need any sense knocked into me_. I thought. _It is you who must have some sense knocked into you._

"Tell me about Tommy, Scarlett." Atticus said to Mom and started to rub his hand on Mom's hand.

"Oh, he's a handsome boy." Mom replied. "He is smart like Beatrice but he isn't too crazy about books. Tommy's my favorite child and I love giving him what he wants to have."

_Mom, Tommy is crazy about books. _I thought. _It's not 'parent-like' to lie to another adult._

"And what do you do for a living and how do you do your job?" Mom asked in a seductive tone.

"I sell used cars with insane prices that I like to come up with to people. First thing in the morning, my employees bring in a number of used cars to me and they put them in the repair shop. After I fix up a certain car, I make up a price. This one car that I sold originally had the cost of four hundred and thirty two dollars. I sold it for three thousand nine hundred and fifty six bucks."

I can't take that conversation anymore. Question being asked and hearing a stranger sell used cars for unfair prices are really making my head spin. I think it's time for me to stop the conversation.

"Morning, Mom." I said.

Mom turns her head at me and stands up.

"Hey, Beatrice. Did you sleep well?" She asked with an irritated look on her face.

I nodded and said, "Mm-hmm."

Then, Atticus stood up and walked towards me with Mom.

"You're Beatrice, right?" He asked.

"Yes, sir, I am." I replied in a series but monotone voice.

Atticus held out his hand and I slowly grabbed it with reluctance. We shook our hands. I noticed that Atticus was squeezing my hand too hard while we shook our hands in the form of a typical American greeting.

"Beatrice, this is Atticus DuBois. I met him online a few weeks ago." Mom said.

_Curse those stupid social media websites! _I thought.

I crossed my arms.

"What's my mom's favorite sandwich?" I asked like a cop interrogating a criminal.

"Beatrice, you know better than to do that!" Mom exclaimed.

"We need to talk, Mom. ALONE…IN ANOTHER ROOM."

"No, Beatrice. Whatever you have to say to me, you have to say it to me and Atticus."  
I shook my head.

"No, Mom. I insist." I said.

Then, Atticus makes a hand gesture to Mom and she leans her right ear towards his mouth. He whispers something but I can still hear what he just said to Mom.

Atticus said,

"Don't give into her. Show her that you're the boss."

Mom nodded her head and looked at me with a frown.

"Beatrice, Atticus is a friend and he and his son are going to stick around until Abbot comes back." She said. "You have to treat Atticus like he's your father and you have to do what he says."

I narrowed my eyes and frowned a really big frown.

"What if I don't?" I asked. "Because Atticus will NEVER…be like Daddy."

"Go to your room, missy." Mom said. "And don't come out until you learned to be a good friend to our guest."

"He's not a guest. He's a stranger."

Then, I walked out of the living room.

I just can't believe my eyes and ears.

Mom met a stranger online, is cheating on Dad, and she is acting childish. Atticus is not only a stranger, but also a crook and a knucklehead. Selling used cars for unfair prices, treating Mom like she was his wife, and talking like a teenager…those are the things that I'm going to add on my list of things that I don't like to see in adults.

_Dad, I wish that you haven't left_. I thought. _Things are already getting worse_.

I sighed sadly and sat on my bed. I began to think about what I'm going to do today and what sorts of things that I can do if Mom makes me go to my room again.

What, what, what can I do?


	7. Chapter 7: Blue Smoke and Wyatt DuBois

**Chapter Seven**

**(Okay, I have to admit that Beatrice's mom is probably one of the meanest characters in the series…BUT…that doesn't mean that she's going to join forces with Judge Doom and make Beatrice's life a living nightmare.**

…

**The last thing that I would like to say is that I give a special thanks to guest reviewer neckolover3 for drawing a picture of Beatrice. Keep up the good work! :D**

**Here is the link to the picture of Beatrice:**

** ?qh=§ion;=&global=1&q=Beatrice+Birchwood**

**Okay, then! **

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**Keep calm, read FanFiction, and drink a D.P. (Dr. Pepper)!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: Get ready for a surprise that's in this chapter. ;-) Wheezy has secret that he's about to expose and it'll probably blow your mind. *I laugh a brief mischievous laugh***

**PPS: AnonymousZGirl, I'm giving you credit for an idea of yours that inspired me to write this chapter.)**

**Greasy:**

I was just about to head on over to see _muchacha _when I noticed something really weird. A small floating cloud of blue smoke drifts away from my face and it continued to float down the hallway of the headquarters. Then, the cloud disappears after hitting the door that led to the waiting room of Toon Patrol Headquarters and I began to suspect that the blue cloud of smoke came from one of Wheezy's cigarettes.

But how in the world did he make a blue cloud of smoke?

I turned to my left and walked down the hall, following the smell of Wheezy's burning cigarettes.

After three doors straight, turning to a left hall, and following down the long hallway to the right, I made it to Wheezy's room. Another blue cloud of smoke slips out from the inside of keyhole and it takes the shape of a heart.

_Wheezy, ¿qué te pasa? _I thought.

I heard Wheezy cough a couple times and then, I heard him wheeze and cough again.

Although Wheezy is very picky about other people, especially Toons, coming into his room while he's smoking or having one of his…stressful moments, I decided to get to the bottom of the blue smoke clouds.

I took a deep breath…and knocked on the door.

…..

**Beatrice:**

Fifteen minutes after I unlocked my bedroom door with a bobby pin (hidden carefully under a loose floorboard), locked it, and began to wonder about how I'm going to cope with Atticus; Mom knocked on my door and said,

"Beatrice, there's someone here to see you."

"I've already met Atticus." I said. "I don't want to see him again."

"It's somebody else, missy. If you don't come out of your room in two minutes, I'm going to take away the keys of your truck and keep them with me for two months."

I rolled my eyes as I heard Mom walk away.

_Fine! _I thought. _I'm going to meet this 'someone' that Mom was talking about and then, I'm going to do what Dad would do in very rare times like this: Kick someone out of the house!_

I walked out of my bedroom and turned to my right.

_If Atticus tries to manipulate me into thinking that he'll be my daddy until the day he dies,_ I thought,_ I'll show him a thing or two about trying to manipulate me and knock some sense into him._

…..

**Greasy:**

"Greasy, why do you want to know about me blowing blue clouds of smoke?" Wheezy asked with irritation in his voice.

"Because I know that something's up, Wheezy." I said. "What's making you blow blue clouds of smoke?"

Wheezy doesn't answer. All he begins to do now is glance around the room nervously.

That's when I began to notice something. My attention was caught by the pillow on Wheezy's bed (that was in the far right corner of his office). There was something hiding underneath his pillow.

"What do you have underneath that pillow?" I asked.

Wheezy shook his head at a really fast pace.

"NOTHING." He replied.

"Wheezy, there's something underneath your bed." I said as I walked towards the bed really slowly. "I can see it from where I walking."

…..

**Beatrice:**

After walking into the living room, Mom was nowhere to be seen.

But I saw Atticus with a boy standing in front of him. The boy had Justin Bieber's hair but looked like the guy who played Reese from _Malcom in the Middle. _The boy wore a black sweater (with the sleeves torn off, thus exposing a white shirt), torn jeans, dirty Converse shoes, and a gray wool cap covered his 'pop-star hair', as if he were hiding an enormous bald spot.

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes.

"Who's he?" I asked Atticus.

"He's my son." Atticus replied. "Go ahead, son. Introduce yourself and tell her what you have on your mind."

The boy's eyes moved up and down multiple times, as if he were a talent scout looking for the right woman to be the right model. After a few more seconds, the boy held out his hand and gave me an annoying evil smug.

"My name's Wyatt," he said while I shook his hand, "and your hair looks like it's been cut with a weed whacker."

I gasped in disgust and tugged my hand away.

"DO YOU KISS YOUR MAMA WITH THAT MOUTH?!" I exclaimed angrily.

Then, Atticus and Wyatt began to laugh and gave each other high-fives.

"I'm sorry." Wyatt laughed and picked a picture of Daddy in the eighties. "What I was going to say was, 'Your dad is so ugly that he tied a steak around his neck so that the dogs can play with him'!"

I frowned.

"SHUT…THE HECK…UP…WYATT." I said angrily.

"First amendment says that everyone has the right to say anything that they have in their minds." Atticus said.

Oh, man! I hate that! I hate it when someone mentions the first amendment and uses it in something that doesn't apply to it.

"You heard my dad!" Wyatt said. "I can say whatever I want and nobody's going to stop me! Not even your stupid dad!"

I spat on Wyatt's face like a country man spitting chewing tobacco. He exclaimed in disgust, which doesn't really surprise me because I've seen and heard that reaction about a million times in my life.

"Stop insulting my daddy, Wyatt!" I said. "And you do not talk like that in this house. Insulting people is frowned upon here."

…

**Greasy:**

I snatched…a sheet of paper from underneath Wheezy's pillow and I couldn't believe my eyes after I saw a picture, drawn with blue ink, on the single sheet of white paper.

"Who is this? Cressida?" I asked.

"YEAH! SO WHAT?!" Wheezy exclaimed and swiped the paper out of my hands.

"What's going on, Wheezy? What is it? If you tell me, I wouldn't tell anyone."

At first, Wheezy tries to not to look worried after attempting breathe in big rounds of smoke into him. That didn't work very well and Wheezy blurted out,

"I'm turning into YOU, Greasy!"

I looked at Wheezy with a puzzled look on my face.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"OH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I'M IN LOVE WITH BEATRICE'S FRIEND, CRESSIDA GRUWELL!" Wheezy exclaimed. "After that tornado a few months ago and when we started looking for Beatrice, I immediately fell in love with Cressida! It's how she's a very different girl with a hairstyle that I would never see from other girls and how she chews on a peppermint stick when she's nervous that made me fall in love with her! This…this is my very first time that I've fell in love with a girl and I don't know what to do or say whenever I'm around Cressida or when I'm planning to see her again!"

I put my hands on Wheezy's shoulders and we both sat down on the floor.

…..

**Beatrice:**

"If you say anything wrong about me or my daddy, I'm going knock some sense into you that'll make you think twice before you speak." I said to Wyatt.

"You can't tell me what to do." Wyatt replied. "I'm twenty three and you're seventeen. I'm older than you and there's nothing that you can do to stop me from talking to you."

"Despite of your age, you can't insult a Texas girl."

"What I said were not insults. I said some things that came to my mind and I said them."

"How would you like it if I said something mean to your daddy?" I asked.

"My dad doesn't care." Wyatt replied.

"And I don't want to see you or your daddy in this house! I don't want y'all here!"

"Give us one reason why we should leave!" Atticus exclaimed as Mom walked in with her hands on her hips.

"I'll give you and Wyatt SIX good reasons why you should leave and I don't give a HOOT if I get punished for this!"

"What are you six reasons?" Wyatt asked.

I took a deep breath.

"One, you two were being very ugly to me." I replied.

"And?" Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt asked me in unison.

I raised my right hand up to my right cheek.

"Two…" I said and put my little finger down to my palm.

"…three…"

My ring finger was brought down to my palm.

"…four…"

My middle finger goes down.

"…five…"

My index finger goes down.

"…and SIX!"

My thumb curls up on my index, middle, and ring fingers and I shake my right fist. Then, I punched Wyatt and Atticus. They both fell down to the floor with two loud THUDs as I ran back to my room.

After turning to my right down the hall, I ran a few more feet and turned a left. I entered my room, slammed the door shut, and locked it.

I don't give a hoot if Mom is going to punish me for punching two strangers but Wyatt and Atticus really deserved those punches.

One thing that they haven't kept in mind is that if you insult a girl from Texas, you would get yourself in a whole of trouble if you don't think twice about something. If Atticus and Wyatt don't keep that in mind, then I'm going to call Dad and he'll teach them a lesson. I also hope that he'll teach Mom a lesson.

…

**Greasy:**

"I said that I wasn't going to tell anyone about your feelings for Cressida, Wheezy." I said. "I won't even tell Psycho or Boss."

"You know what will happen if you do tell." Wheezy said.

I nodded.

"Yes, I know." I replied. "You'll do something that'll make me humiliated."

Wheezy nodded.

"But you should also keep in mind that _muchacha _is smart and I know stuff about love." I said. "If you have a question, ask either me or _muchacha _in a private room and we'll try our best to answer your question."

Wheezy rolled his eyes, mumbled something, and blew out a heart-shaped cloud of blue smoke (with Cressida's name written in it).

"I'm going to leave you alone and I'm going to see _muchacha._" I said. "I'm going to check on her to see if she's doing all right. You can come along if you want."

Wheezy shook his head.

"No." He said. "I'm going to let you enjoy your time with your girl."

"All right." I replied as I was heading towards the door of the office. "Suit yourself."


	8. Chapter 8: Beatrice, Greasy, and Wheezy

**Chapter Eight**

**(All right…I didn't like the way Atticus, Wyatt, Scarlett was treating Beatrice, I must admit, but don't worry at all! Things are going to get better for Beatrice but it's going to take some time.**

**Throughout the rest of the week, school is going to get really busy and I may find it hard for me to find the right day to start typing. I just wanted to let y'all know, that's all.**

**If I don't publish a chapter on a certain day, then that means…either I was really busy with other stuff or I fell asleep while I was writing a chapter. **

**Soooo…**

**That's it! **

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**Keep calm, read FanFiction, and give your best friend a back pat!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Wheezy:**

I didn't even stop to relax after Greasy left my room. I continued to smoke until something just made me stop. That 'something' was the picture of Cressida. I was smoking it.

It all began this way:

Just ten minutes before Greasy came in to my room, I was minding my own business. I really wasn't doing anything…other than just smoking my regular amount of cigarettes. All of the sudden, a memory of Cressida just came to me.

_I remember that one day when Cressida and I were a part of Greasy's search party after a tornado occurred in Houston a few months. While searching for Beatrice, I was walking around in the woods with Cressida. _

_ We were just walking. Nothing interesting happened…until I began to smell peppermint. I turned my head to my right and I saw that Cressida was…chewing on a peppermint stick._

_ "How can you think of food at a time like this?" I asked her with my voice slowly growing really raspy. "We're looking for another person and you're just eating a peppermint stick."_

_ "Hey, when I get nervous, scared, stressed, or angry, I chew on a peppermint stick." Cressida said with a stern voice. "I don't know why but it somehow helps."_

_ After she finished her sentence and went back to chewing…or gnawing on her peppermint stick, I began to think over on what I said to Cressida. _

_ I smoke whenever I get stressed or angry so…I'm not going to blame Cressida for trying to relieve stress by chewing or gnawing on a peppermint stick._

Did I apologize to her? Yes, and I probably might not say those two words ('I'm sorry' is what I mean by 'two words'.) again (because I don't really believe in apologies).

Then, after that memory ended, I lost control and began to think that maybe Cressida has an addiction that she's trying to get rid of. I even began to admire that possibility of trying to get of an addiction because I never actually saw anyone try to get rid of an addiction.

I even began to draw a picture of Cressida. Since all of my pencils were broken and thrown away, I used a blue ink pen.

Unfortunately, the picture didn't look good after the ink was smudging the paper. I got really upset about the picture that I nearly tore my desk apart.

Then, I heard someone knock on my door, which got me worried because if anybody else finds out that I'm love with Cressida, then my life wouldn't be good.

Thinking fast, I rolled up the picture and made it look like one of my cigarettes. I took my cigarette lighter out from my vest and lit one end of the paper.

"Wheezy, may I come in?" I heard Boss ask me from the other side of my door.

As I began to smoke on my poorly drawn picture, I coughed a few times, like I usually do when I'm smoking on a new cigarette, and said,

"Come in."

Then, Boss walked in.

To make this story short, I'm going to skip ahead to where I continued to smoke on my picture and I started to blow blue smoke out of my mouth. How did I do that? Don't give me credit. It's not a trick that I came up with. Give credit to my nervousness, making-my-own-cigarette-out-of-almost-anything-if-there-isn't-a-box-to-be-found habit, crazy Toon actions, and the combination of toon fire (from my cigarette lighter) and blue ink.

Anyway, I acted like I have been blowing blue smoke for my whole life when I really didn't and…you know the rest, Greasy walks in to my room and talked about my feelings for Cressida.

To be honest with you, I really would like to have a day when I spend some time with Cressida and try to get to know her better. Maybe even try to stop smoking.

It's not going to be easy but as the people who call themselves 'experts' say,

"Rome wasn't built in one day."

Or was it Greece?

…..

**Beatrice:**

Several more hours pass and I'm just lying down on my bed while wearing a tank top and shorts instead of the clothes that I wore last night.

Throughout the rest of the day, Atticus and Wyatt spent their time moving their stuff into the guest bedroom and the living room of my house. I'm still going to make Atticus and Wyatt pay after what they said to me.

_Bilge rats! _I thought. _They better think twice before they make me punch them in the face._

I haven't the left my room at all after I punched Atticus and Wyatt. I've been staying here all day and I did many things that can keep me occupied. I read every book that I owned on my bookshelf, played every song that from my piano songbook, drew pictures, and even waited for a miracle to happen.

Nothing else happened after that and I decided to make time go by quicker by taking a nap. Unfortunately, time was going by too slow.

_Just keep your eyes closed. _I thought. _You'll fall asleep eventually but not right now._

Following my thoughts, I kept my eyes closed and tried to drift away into a sleeping fantasy.

Then, I was interrupted by someone climbing on my bed, causing it to tip to the side a little bit, and that someone began rub my hair. My guess is that Greasy snuck into my house and slipped through the crack underneath my door.

I opened my eyes and turned my eyes to my right.

Yep, I was right. It's Greasy.

"Hey, Greasy." I said.

"Did I wake you?" He asked.

I shook my head.

"No." I replied. "You're good."

"_Muchacha, _who are those two men?" Greasy asked. "Distant relatives?"

"No. They're actually friends of my mom…I think…and they didn't cooperate with me." I replied. "I didn't cooperate with them. They said mean things to me, things went crazy and I…lost my mind and punched my momma's friends after they went too far."

The moment when I made a fist as I listed my reasons why Atticus and Wyatt should leave echoed in my head.

"That took guts, _muchacha." _Greasy said.

"I know it took guts but after that, I locked myself in here because I was afraid that Momma and her friends will come after me and beat me up real good."

"Those men didn't hurt you, right?"

"They didn't hurt me…physically…but they insulted me."

"Where's your father? He helps you out in times of trouble."

I sighed sadly.

"My dad's going on a business trip and he can't pick up the phone because reception is really bad." I said.

"What does that mean? The 'reception is really bad'?" Greasy asked as he was taking his arm out from behind my neck and head.

"It means that I can't get my dad to talk on the phone because he's in a certain area where he can't get phone calls that easily."

"Oh."

As Greasy shuffles around my bed to get in a better lying position, he asked,

"Do you have any good news that you would like to talk about?"

After a brief moment of thinking, I remembered what Dad said about my new school.

"I'm going to another school in a few days." I said. "It's a kind of school where the students who go there can see, hear, and talk to Toons."

"That's amazing!" Greasy exclaimed. "I thought that there wouldn't be a school where the students have the ability to see Toons."

"At least it would be better than the school that I had to go for the past few months."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because I found some Toons wandering around my school and they did some silly things. I had to talk to them quite a few times because I was afraid that someone was going to be a victim of whatever the Toon was planning to do."

"And some people thought that you were talking to an invisible person, right?"

I nodded.

"Thought so." Greasy said.

Then, we didn't say anything after that because nothing came to our minds until a few minutes later, right at the point when things were about to get awkward.

"Where's Thomas?" Greasy asked.

"He's in England right now." I replied.

"What for?"

"He wrote an essay that caught his teacher's attention and not only Tommy got a good grade but a trip to England. He'll be back in a few days."

"I wonder how he's doing right now."

Just as I was about to say something, my doorknob began to rattle.

I sat up in surprise.

"Momma, is that you?" I asked.

The doorknob continued to rattle.

"Momma, the door is locked. I'm not letting you in my room." I said.

All of the sudden, the doorknob stops rattling.

"Who's there?!" I asked.

_Wyatt, if you try to scare me like that again, I'm going to put itching powder in your pants. _I thought. _Atticus, I'm going to rearrange your teeth if you bust that door down and try to insult me again._

"It's Roger Rabbit!"

Greasy gave me a look of shock.

"I wasn't expecting anybody else, I swear!" I said.

Pause.

"I'm positive!" I said again.

"But what am I supposed to do when the rabbit comes in here?!" Greasy asked.

Okay, I've had enough with this conflict between Roger Rabbit and the Toon Patrol. This is the time for them to forgive, forget, and be friends instead of enemies.

"Beatrice, may I come in?" Roger asked.

"Hold on just a second, Roger." I replied.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Greasy asked.

I sighed.

"You're not going to like this but you're going to do it." I said.

"What are you talking about?" Greasy asked.

I bit my lip and aimed my eyes and face at my bedroom door.

"Roger, you may come in but you have to slip under the crack of the door." I said.

Then, I heard Roger shuffling around and I saw him slip under the crack of the door.

When Roger came in, he was as flat as a sheet of paper. I picked up his feet and I dragged Roger towards my bed. I gave Roger some space as he began to take a deep breath in and come back to his original shape.

"So Beatrice, how are you-?" Roger began with a smile and then, he looked at Greasy, who had a blank look on his face.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"


	9. Chapter 9: Making Amends

**Chapter Nine**

**(Okay, here is a chapter that has Yen Sid thinking about the lives of the Twins and Beatrice's interactions with the Toon Patrol and Roger Rabbit.**

**I know that y'all don't like the Beatrice is getting treated by her momma, Wyatt, and Atticus but that's what it was like in **_**Matilda**_**. If Beatrice wasn't a part of a story that's similar to **_**Matilda**_**, then there wouldn't be a story.**

**You know what I'm saying?**

**Again, I'm sorry if I'm not making sense with any parts of the messages.**

**Anyway, here is another chapter.**

**So kick back, relax, enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: In the previous story, Beatrice gets glasses but throughout the almost whole story, no action about Beatrice putting on or adjusting her glasses is mentioned. In this story, Beatrice will probably be doing some things with her glasses a lot. I just wanted to let y'all know that in case if y'all forgot about the glasses.)**

**Third Person POV:**

"Servant of the Magic Mirror,

COME FROM THE FARTHEST SPACE.

Through the wind and the light,

SPEAK!" Yen Sid cried.

Thunder booms and wind 'whooshes' to add in a dramatic effect.

"Let me see your face!" Yen Sid concluded as a flame burns inside the Mirror.

After a few seconds, the flame dies down and the mask appears on in the middle of the glass.

"What wouldst thou know, my master and friend?" The Mirror asked in his typical monotone voice. "If you want to see the future, whether it's changed or not, there is no end."

"Magic Mirror on the wall, my servant and friend," Yen Sid began, "has the conflict between Roger and the Toon Patrol come to an end?"

"Behold, my master and friend, Beatrice, Roger, and the weasels are having a meeting. She is very determined that negative judgment would be replaced with a proper greeting."

The floating mask fades away as he begins to display a vision of the present.

Yen Sid watches the vision of Beatrice's meeting.

…

_ Smarty, Greasy, Wheezy, Psycho, Stupid, Sleazy, Slimy, and Flasher are sitting down on Beatrice's bed in a horizontal single file line while Beatrice and Roger stand in front of them._

_ "I called y'all here for a reason." Beatrice said in a serious tone. "I didn't call y'all here so that y'all can hurt Roger. In fact, the way that y'all act around Roger and other Toons is getting out of hand. I don't want to see any of y'all trying to scare, threaten, or hurt Roger or other Toons. Y'all need to make up, apologize, forgive, forget, and be friends. There will be one day when you want help each other after getting stuck in a situation."_

_ Greasy nodded in agreement._

_ "Do any of y'all have anything else to say?" Beatrice asked as she adjusted her glasses. "If y'all do, raise your hand, if y'all want to, say it, and don't bottle anything up. This meeting is about getting rid of every thought of having a rivalry."_

_ After glancing at the others, Greasy raised his hand._

_ "Yes?" Beatrice asked._

_ "Remember when I asked you if we deserved to be dipped?" Greasy asked._

_ She nodded._

_ "Well, after every Toon found out about the Sleepwalking Incident, every Toon, except for the rabbit, said that we deserved to be dipped. The rabbit was the only one who didn't say that we deserve to be dipped in the Dip."_

_ Beatrice looked at Roger._

_ "Is that true?" She asked in a calm voice._

_ Roger nodded and raised his hand._

_ "Go ahead, Roger." Beatrice said. "Say whatever you have in your mind."_

_ "Since I believe every Toon should be treated fairly," Roger said after putting his hand down, "I wanted to tell the Toon Patrol that they don't deserved to be dipped but I was nervous and I couldn't say anything to them."_

_ Beatrice then aims her eyes at the Toon Patrol, Sleazy, Slimy, and Flasher._

_ "You hear that?" She asked. "Roger wanted to tell y'all that y'all don't deserve to be dipped in the Dip. He is a nice guy and I think that y'all should give him a chance."_

_ The weasels exchange glances with each other._

_ "I know that y'all don't like the idea but y'all have to give Roger a chance." Beatrice said. "Giving chances, mercy, and cooperation are what make the world go 'round. Holding grudges and rivalries are what make the world stop spinning."_

_ Psycho, Greasy, and Sleazy nodded in agreement._

_ Then, Beatrice walks to her desk, opens the top left drawer, and takes out a few sheets of paper and some pencils. She sets them aside, reaches under her desk, and takes out a cardboard shoebox._

_ "What's that for?" Smarty asked._

_ "Boss, you forgot to raise your hand!" Wheezy exclaimed in a raspy voice._

_ "No, no, no." Beatrice said as she opens the shoebox. "He didn't have to raise his hand."_

_ Then, Beatrice cleared her throat and puts the open box on her bedroom floor._

_ "One last thing before this meeting comes to a conclusion," She began, "for those who did and didn't say anything, I want y'all to take one sheet of paper and write down every thought that has been unsaid. When you're done, you can either crumble up the paper into a ball or tear it up into shreds and put it all in this box. I will sneak outside and burn up the box and everything inside it. As y'all leave, shake hands with Roger and make amends with him, even if y'all don't feel like it."_

_ Beatrice picks up the paper and pencils and passes them out to Flasher, Slimy, Sleazy, Stupid, Psycho, Wheezy, Greasy, Smarty, and Roger. She walks over to her desk and takes out another sheet of paper and pencil. _

_ Everyone takes their time writing down their thoughts on their sheets of paper. _

_ Stupid was 'writing' with the eraser for a while until Sleazy told him that he was writing with the wrong end of the pencil._

_ Beatrice chuckled softly and shook her head a little bit. Then, she crumbles up her sheet of paper and tosses it into the shoebox._

_ "What do we do with the pencils?" Sleazy asked Beatrice._

_ "Just put them on my desk." She replied._

_ Almost immediately after the reply, Sleazy tears up his sheet of paper and walks to the shoebox. He drops the torn bits and pieces in the shoebox, followed by Roger, Psycho, and Smarty._

_ Then, Wheezy, Stupid, Slimy, Flasher, and Greasy crumble up their sheets of paper and they drop them into the shoebox._

_ After everyone in the room discards their sheets of paper, they pick up their pencils and put them on Beatrice's desk._

_ Beatrice picks up the box and walks to the window. She puts the box down and she carefully pushes the window open. She picks up the box, climbs out of her room, and walks to the driveway. _

_ After putting the box down on a dry and safe spot, Beatrice sneaks back to the window, climbs back into her room, and walks to the open drawer of her desk. She takes out a huge box of matches and hides them in the left pocket of her black shorts. _

_ Beatrice climbs out of her room and walks over to the box. After glancing at the front door for a brief second, she takes the box of matches out of her pocket, picks out a few matches, and slips them in the shoebox. Beatrice takes out two more matches and strikes them on the rough surface of the match box._

_ Both of the matches light up and Beatrice sets them on the lid of the shoebox. She watches the box getting burned up by the fire with a small satisfied smile on her face._

…..

The vision ended at the point when Beatrice grinned a satisfied grin.

"Thank you, my good servant and friend, for showing me how Beatrice is doing." Yen Sid said with a small but very satisfied smile. "Go ahead and get some rest. I'll wake you again if I need to have another viewing."

The light in the Magic Mirror dims as Yen Sid walked to his wooden table. On the table was a bottle of ink, a quill pen, and an opened book, as thick as an anvil, with a ton of blank pages. Well, three-quarters of the book had blank pages and only one quarter of the book had pages with either written text or drawings of specific people. The drawings were people who knew Yen Sid when they met him. After a meeting or when those people are at a certain age when they get too occupied with other things, Yen Sid would draw a picture of them and he would never forget anything about them. But this time, things are serious. Yen Sid met Beatrice and Tommy. He found light, purity, justice, and many other good things in their hearts and the Twins will never be forgotten—

Wait. Why did Yen Sid zone out all of the sudden?

_Okay. _Yen Sid thought. _Back to what I was supposed to be doing._

Yen Sid takes the quill pen and dips the edge inside the ink bottle. After turning a couple of pages, Yen Sid brings the quill pen to the upper left corner of the right page and begins to draw…a heart.

Then, outlines of Smarty are drawn with the heart in his chest.

As Yen Sid moves his quill pen to draw seven more hearts from the top middle to the bottom middle of the right page, outlines of Greasy, Psycho, Wheezy, Stupid, Sleazy, Slimy, and Flasher are drawn with the hearts in the middle of their bodies.

Then, Yen Sid puts the quill pen down and watches the drawings of the weasels. Greasy's heart begins to glow white and then, the white is replaced with blue.

_That blue comes from Beatrice's heart. _Yen Sid thought. _That power is stronger than I thought._

All of the sudden, the lights from the Mirror began to flicker.

A vision shows up on the glass of the Mirror and Yen Sid watches in surprise and horror.


	10. Chapter 10: Beatrice and Angie

**Chapter Ten**

**(How are y'all doing?**

**Good? **

**Bad? **

**Other_?**

**Here is another link to a drawing that nekolover3 drew for the seventh chapter of this story. Again, nekolover3, that's really good! Keep up the good work! **

**Anyway, here is another chapter for this story.**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**Link:**

** art/Wheezy-love-430871797)**

**Beatrice:**

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, BIRCHWOOD?" A voice exclaimed from behind me, making me jump in surprise.

I turned around and I saw…Angie with a bag full of things that I couldn't see. Her long jet black hair bounced as she walked.

"What does it look like, Angie?" I asked while I stood firm and crossed my arms. "And what did I tell you about finding you wandering around on my property?"

"You burning any cigarettes?" Angie asked as she stopped on the driveway, at least an arm-and-a-half length away from me.

"No."

"Then what are you burning?"

"Not telling you."

"Tell me, Birchwood."

I shook my head.

"No, Angie." I said.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Angie asked in a mocking tone. "I don't speak Idiot."

I frowned a small frown.

_I'm not the idiot. _I thought. _The person who calls the second person that IS the idiot. That first person is YOU._

"What's that around your neck?" Angie asked as she dropped her bag and walked towards me.

"A dog tag." I replied calmly.

"What the heck is on your dog tag and how on Earth is it glowing?"

_Glowing? _I thought and looked at my dog tag.

The sketch of the brain with Yen Sid's hat was glowing a neon blue color when I looked at my dog tag in confusion. It was glowing like a lantern in the middle of a dark room.

_Wow, that looks cool. _I thought. _Cool and freaky at the same time._

Angie was half an arm's length away when she grabbed my dog tag. The light from the tag was bright enough for me to see her golden hazel eyes, making me feel like I was having a staring contest with a great horned owl. It was an uneasy feeling.

"What the heck is that?" She asked. "A brain? That hat from that _Fantastia _movie? What you have on that dog tag looks really stupid. What would people say to you if they saw that dog tag? Oh, wait. I can answer that for them." Angie lets the tag hit my chest. "'You are a nothing. You are an idiot, a bag of trash, and a nobody.' Honestly, Beatrice, why can't you be like other girls?"

That's something that Mama would say to me on some days.

"There's nothing wrong with me being who I truthfully am, Angie." I replied calmly as the fire from the shoebox began to die into the ashes. "I honestly don't like to dress up, wear make-up, or watch chick flicks. That's the truth. I much rather be a tomboy who likes to catch frogs, roll around in the mud, climb trees, read, draw, and sing. Marilyn Monroe says, 'Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring'. Wreck-It Ralph says, 'There's nobody that I'd rather be than me'."

Angie gave me a surprised look.

Then, she smiled.

"Beatrice, that was a fantastic…" She began.

I was surprised that Angie is actually moved by my reply. Is she going to be nice to me once and for all?

All of the sudden, I felt Angie's fist…hitting my jaw, causing me to stagger as Angie said,

"…load of horse turd!"

Since I don't have shoes or flip flops on, I accidently stepped in to the hot ashes, causing me to exclaim in pain. I jumped away from the pile of ashes when Angie was about to punch me again. Her fist hits the back of Atticus's pick-up truck, barely making a dent.

I ran away from the truck but it was little hard for me to run with my feet burning. The rough pavement of the driveway scratches the soles of my feet as I ran and limped.

"What did I do to make you punch me?!" I exclaimed. "I didn't do anything to you!"

"You ruined my life!" Angie said. "You're too smart, you're a rebel, and your stupid performance during our kindergarten years took away my opportunity to the most talented girl in Houston! A girl can't be a good influence by being smart or being a rebel!"  
"Angie, let it go. Whatever happened in the past should never be brought up again. It's not good to hold a grudge!"

I stumbled on to the ground. Angie moved in on me, grabbed me by the collar of my tank top, and pinned me on the garage door of my house.

"LIAR! Ever since my mom had to go to jail, I couldn't enter beauty pageants because she was the head of all of them! She was going to make me a star! After my mom had to go to jail, she was sentenced to spend fifty-five years in an asylum! Because of that-"

"ANGIE!" I exclaimed.

"—I couldn't enter beauty pageants or talent shows because everyone thought that I was going to be insane! It's all because of you! You're going to pay!" Angie continued.

"ANGIE!"

"I'M GOING TO FINISH THE JOB! THIS IS FOR MY MOM!"

"ANGIE, I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT YOU!"

"IT'S TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY!"

All of the sudden, the front door slams open.

"WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?" Mom shouted as I heard her walk towards me and Angie.

"Mama, do something! Help me!" I exclaimed.

Angie pushed me harder against the garage door, as if she were saying 'Shut up'.

"Angie Pikowski!" Mom exclaimed happily. "How's the family? How's your mother?"

The frog-hating queen bee (Angie) looked at Mom with a smile on her face while I was still pinned on to the garage.

"My mother's good and everybody else is doing fine." She replied to Mom. "Thanks for asking."

"And why are you pinning Beatrice on the garage door?" Mom asked.

Angie pauses and begins to think about a good response.

"If you're aiming to do something, go ahead and do it." Mom replied, to my horror. "I'm not going to stop you. Beatrice needs to have some sense knocked into her."

Then, Mom turned around and headed back inside.

"MAMA, NO!" I exclaimed. "HELP ME! HELP ME!"

"Mommy isn't going to help you." Angie said. "She has nothing to do with us now."

Then, I just lost it.

Abruptly, I spat at Angie twice and then, I gave her a good uppercut to her chin. Angie staggered back while exclaiming in pain and disgust.

"LEAVE ME ALONE, ANGIE! I'VE HAD ENOUGH WITH YOU!" I exclaimed as I jumped back on my feet.

"I'm not finished with you!" Angie exclaimed in anger.

She picks up her bag and takes out a CAN. She throws it at me and it hits my shoulder.

_Is that the best that you can do? _I thought.

Then, Angie takes out five…six…seven more cans from her bag and she throws them at me like baseballs. I dodge them like it was a game of dodge ball.

"Is that all you got?!" I exclaimed.

With an evil smug on her face, Angie takes out a glass bottle with jagged edges.

"WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" I exclaimed in shock and fear.

Angie doesn't answer me.

She takes off running and prepares to poke me with the jagged edges of the bottle.

_Where's help when you need it?! _I thought.

I moved to my left, pressed my back against the pickup truck, and stuck my right foot out. Angie falls down on her stomach and the bottle flies out of her hands. It was at a good distance away from Angie's hand.

But Angie doesn't give up.

She trips me by tangling her legs with my feet and I fall down to the ground. I felt Angie pounding my back really hard with her fist. I didn't exclaim in pain. I kept all of my exclamations in.

"Let's see if this will make you crack!" Angie exclaimed as I tried to wiggle myself out from her grip.

Then, I felt a burning flaky object getting thrown on the back of my legs and on my feet again. It was the ash.

I exclaimed in pain and then, in defense, I gave one of Angie's shins a good punch.

Angie releases me and then, I punch her hard.

I quickly got on my feet and I ran off my driveway, despite of the burns on my feet.

That's when I decided that I'm going to do something for the first time in a long time since Kaitlyn died. Because of Tommy being gone, I'm going to seek help from a friend.

I'm going to see Cressida.

I ran to my right and limped down the road.

When I was fifteen feet away from my driveway, Angie came running towards me.

I still don't stop.

I took off running like I was trying to reach the finish line and win a big prize. Angie still wasn't at a good distance to come after me. She was dragging behind but she still followed me.

Then, after three lefts and a right, I made it to the road that led to Cressida's house.

I was just about to run and limp on Cressida's driveway when I fell down to my knees.

"SOMEBODY!" I exclaimed. "SOMEBODY…PLEASE…HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

That's when Angie came up to me.

"YOU'RE GOING TO PAY!" She exclaimed.

Then, she punched me in the chest and pulled my glasses off my face.

As I put my hand on where Angie punched me and listening to the sound of my glasses hitting grass, Angie grabbed a wooden plank from a garbage pile and she began to hit me with it on my arms, my back, and the back of my head.

"BEATRICE, IS THAT YOU?!" Cressida shouted after opening the front door.

Then, there was a brief pause.

"HEY, STOP THAT!" Cressida exclaimed at Angie.

I felt the plank hitting me on my face but over my right eye as I heard Cressida running towards me.

"Cressida, watch out for the plank." I said weakly and covered my eye.

Angie, all of the sudden, exclaimed in surprise…and then, in pain. She exclaims in pain again…and again…and again.

Finally, Angie was out. Not dead…but unconscious.

"There." Cressida said and unwrinkled her robe. "That should take care of her."

"Thanks, Cressida." I replied.

She looked at me and gasped in horror.

"Beatrice, what happened to you?" Cressida asked as she sat down next to me. "Did that girl do all of that to you?"

I nodded.

"I was having a meeting with Smarty and the others…" I said with my voice shaking. "…and they wrote down their negative thoughts and put them in a shoebox. I went outside with that shoebox and I burned it up. Angie came out of nowhere and after a brief conversation, she punched me. I accidently stepped on the ash and burnt my feet. Angie punched me, threw cans, and sprinkled burning ash on my legs and feet. She even tried to poke me with a bottle with jagged edges but I avoided that. I came running here for help and you saw Angie hitting me with a wooden plank. Before she did that, she took my glasses off and threw them somewhere around this area. Then, she punched me."

I broke down crying.

"I was so scared." I said.

Then, Cressida begins to hug me.

"It's okay, Beatrice." She said. "You're all right. I'll make sure that Angie will never bother you again. I simply can't allow anyone like Angie do that to you."

I began to take a few deep breaths.

"You're really brave, you know." Cressida said. "And you're one of the toughest girls that I've known in my life. You really went through a lot."

"I was still scared." I replied.

"It's all right to be scared. I would've been scared too. Do you need a ride back to your house?"

I looked at Cressida.

"What would your foster parents think if you drove me back home?" I asked.

"I don't think they'll mind if I borrow their car for sixteen minutes." Cressida replied. "If they ask, I'll tell them what happened."

I smiled a small smile.

"You're a good friend, Cressida." I said.

"But before I take you home, I'm going to call the police. I think it's time for Angie to go behind bars."

I nodded.

Then, Cressida takes her cell phone out of her robe pocket and she runs back into her house. After a few brief seconds, she comes back with a set of car keys in one of her hands.

While Cressida climbed in to her parents' black pickup truck, I pulled Angie by her arms and dragged her to the front yard of Cressida's house. I picked up my glasses and put them on my face.

I climbed into the truck as Cressida makes her 911 call. I didn't really pay attention to the conversation because I was rubbing my burnt legs and thought about what would've happened if Angie continued to beat me. I probably would've been so weak that I wouldn't be able to do anything. I probably would've died if Angie continued to beat me with a wooden plank.

After ending the call, Cressida put the truck in reverse and backed off the driveway. Then, she threw the car in 'Drive' and she began to drive me back to my house.

Throughout the ride, I stared out the window and watched everything move in a slow blur. The cold air conditioning blew on my face and small strands of my hair tickled my cheeks and nose. Goosebumps ran up and down my spine but my burns kind of stung when goose bumps were running down my legs.

With my eyes, I glanced at Cressida.

Then, I took a deep breath and said,

"Thanks, Cressida."

"You're welcome, Beatrice." She said.

Then, we arrived at my house. Cressida parked the pickup close to the edge of the driveway of my house and I got out.

"Thanks again." I said as I climbed out.

"If you need any help from me," Cressida said, "just call me and I'll help you out."

I nodded.

"All right." I said.

"Good night." Cressida replied.

"Good night."

Then, I closed the door and watched Cressida drive the pick-up away.

Instead of going to the front door, I walked to my bedroom window, which was still unlocked. I pulled it open and I carefully climbed into my bedroom.

When my burnt feet touched the carpet, they stung a lot as I walked. My feet even tingled when I shuffled a little bit. There was no way that I'm going to get used that.

The weasels and Roger weren't in the room. They probably went back to Toon Town while I had my struggle with Angie. Either that or either one of the weasels or Roger stayed behind while I was absent for a few minutes.

But since I can't go to the bathroom and run cold water on my legs and feet, I have to spend the rest of the night sleeping with the cold air in my room and let it cool my legs and feet. Then, I'll go to the bathroom, run some cold water, apply some aloe vera, and wrap my legs and feet with bandage tape.

After closing and locking my window and putting my dog tag on my nightstand, I turned off the lights and walked towards my bed. Then, I turned off my nightstand lamp and covered myself up a little bit with my blankets.

I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes.

I tried to relax but the tingling from my burns made it hard for me. I gritted my teeth and I forced myself to go to sleep.

Finally, I saw nothing but a black void in my head. That tells me that after struggling to go to sleep for an hour or so, I'm finally sleeping.

I just hope that things will be better tomorrow.

…..

**Greasy:**

After waiting a few minutes outside of _muchacha's _house, I slipped through the crack of her window.

I found _muchacha _lying on her back and she silently breathes as she tries to go to sleep.

Not wanting to wake her up, I quietly walked towards the sleeping _muchacha _and sat down on her bed.

Then, I looked at her and I watched her making a small sad face in her sleep. As she rolls over on one side of her bed, _muchacha _winces a little bit.

_All right, what did you do this time? _I thought.

Thanks to the moonlight outside, I saw a flashlight on _muchacha's _desk. After I walked over to her desk, I grabbed the flashlight and turned it on.

To my horror, I saw _muchacha's _burnt legs. How on Earth did she burn them?

Then, I aimed the light from the flashlight at one of the bed posts.

I gasped silently at the sight of the black eye.

_Did _muchacha _get into fight with someone while she was burning the shoebox? _I thought. _Is the shoebox the main reason why her legs are burnt?_

I turned back to _muchacha_'s desk and opened the drawer that had the paper pencils. I took out a sheet of paper and a pencil.

I was thinking about talking to _muchacha _but since she's asleep, I don't think that it'll be a great to wake her up around this late at night.

Then, I began to write this on the sheet of paper:

**I came back to see you just a few minutes after you burnt the box.**

** Since I didn't want to wake you up, I decided to wait until the morning to talk to you about your burns and black eye.**

** See you in the morning.**

** Greasy**


	11. Chapter 11: Beatrice and Greasy

**Chapter Eleven**

**(Okay, I know that y'all are waiting for a chapter that talks about what Tommy is doing while Beatrice is struggling with Scarlett and the others.**

**Wait just a few more chapters and I'll write a chapter about what Tommy is about to do. **

**Don't worry about the sad parts. **

**The story is going to get better and even happier as it progresses.**

**Try to hang in there.**

**It takes time for something to get better. Sometimes, a miracle happens immediately and sometimes, it takes some time.**

**Anyway, here is another chapter!**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Third Person:**

Yen Sid wandered around in circles after seeing the terrible and awful thing that the Mirror displayed.

It was probably one of the worst things that Yen Sid had to see.

What Yen Sid saw on the glass of the Magic Mirror was Judge Doom. Somehow, Doom got ahold of some magic that allowed him to get inside Magic Mirror and give Yen Sid a very threatening message.

_**"Remember me, Yen Sid?**_

_** If you don't, I don't care!**_

_** My identity is not important!**_

_** What I'm about to say is IMPORTANT!**_

_** If you don't hand me the girl and her brother the next you see them, then I would hunt them down, and take their hearts!**_

_** There's no use of you trying to stop me!**_

_** I am becoming more powerful by the day and by the month!**_

_** I'm finding fear and anger!**_

_** If I find out that you've been visiting the girl and her brother, then I'll come after you and take all of your magic!**_

_** Give me the girl and her brother or I'll take their hearts and take over the human and Toon worlds with the potent heart power!**_

_**The girl and her brother can't get in the way of my plans!"**_

After that, Yen Sid was breathing hard with fear.

He knows that Doom would try to kill Beatrice and Tommy and try to take over the world with the potent power from their hearts.

Yen Sid had to tell Beatrice about Doom's message but how can he do it without Doom finding out?

That's the last thing that Yen Sid wants.

He cared about Beatrice and Tommy since the day they were born. He would never let anything bad happen to them. He doesn't want the Twins to get hurt or possessed by Doom.

Suddenly, Yen Sid began to think of something that can keep Judge Doom occupied with something else.

…

**Beatrice:**

Although I'm awake, my eyes were closed.

It was too hard for me to sleep with my legs and feet burning and tingling every time I roll on my bed. I'm so tired that I probably need to drink five Dr. Pepper sodas to keep me awake all day.

I really wanted to stay on my bed and sleep more but unfortunately, I can't give in to that. I have to cool and cover up my legs and feet with bandage tape and try to deal with Wyatt, Atticus, and Mom.

Wait a minute.

Greasy is going to freak out when he sees my legs and feet.

I know that he's being a good person…er, weasel…when he's worried about me but Greasy can't overreact or get too clingy or protective. He probably already knows that I'm—

Okay, I'm going to hold that thought because right now, my right cheek is getting rubbed by something scratchy and fuzzy.

Oh, that scratchy and fuzzy thing is moving up to my hair.

"_Buenos días, muchacha_." Greasy's voice whispered in my ear.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked at Greasy.

"Hey." I said sleepily.

"Sleep well?" Greasy asked.

"So-so."

Then, I stretched a little bit.

"How long have you been in my room? Am I missing something?" I asked as I rolled on to my back.

Greasy shook his head.

"No, you're not missing anything." He said. "And I've been here for about an hour or so. I wanted to check on you and talk to you about your legs and feet."

I aimed my eyes at my burnt legs and feet. They were as reddish-pink as raw hamburger meat.

"How did your legs and feet end up like that?" Greasy asked.

"Remember when I had you and the other members of the Toon Patrol write down your thoughts about Roger and put them in the shoebox?" I asked back.

"_Sí_."

"Well, I was burning the shoebox and I had to meet up with Angie, a girl who lives in the outer parts of this area. She came up to me and said some things."

"What did she say?"

"I'll explain those parts later. They're not important. Anyway, after I gave Angie a monologue, she punched me in the jaw. She punched me so hard that I stumbled back and stepped on the ashes from the shoebox. I tried to run away from Angie but my feet were hurting so bad that I fell. After I defended myself, Angie tripped me and burnt my legs with a big handful of the burning ashes. That's how my legs and feet were burnt."

"And this Angie gave you the black eye by punching you."

I shook my head.

"No. She took my glasses off, grabbed a wooden plank, and whacked me with it." I replied. "Geez, I hate giving out details."

"Never mind about the details." Greasy said. "And isn't Angie the one who scratched you and you pushed her in a mud puddle in defense?"

"Yep."

"Did anybody see what Angie was doing to you?"

"Yeah. Cressida. She called the cops and I'm pretty sure that Angie is in jail right now. Although she might need a trial, there's a ninety-nine percent chance that Angie will go to jail."

Greasy gasped in awe.

"That's great! Now Angie will never bother you again." He said.

"Beatrice, who are you talking to?" I heard Mom ask me from behind my locked door as I was about to say something.

I sat up all of the sudden.

Okay, this was something that I've been worrying since I got the gift of seeing and talking to Toons.

"Just tell her that you're talking to Harvey." Greasy said.

I looked at him with a baffled look on my face.

"Just do it."

I looked at my bedroom door.

"Uh, I'm talking to Harvey…on my phone." I said to Mom.

"_Esto es algo que nunca voy a olvidar_." Greasy mumbled and chuckled.

"Well, finish up your conversation and get out of your room. You're going to have a talk with my sweet potato before he goes to work." Mom said.

I rolled my eyes and buried my face in my fists in frustration and disgust after hearing that stupid nickname.

"I mean it." Mom said before I heard her leave.

After a brief pause, Greasy asked,

"'Sweet potato'?"

"It's one of those stupid nicknames that my mom uses when she's talking to or about Atticus." I replied. "If you ask me, Atticus is anything but a sweet potato. He's more of an onion."

Greasy laughed.

"I hate to stop this conversation right here," I said to Greasy, "but I have to talk to Atticus."

"It's all right, _muchacha._" Greasy replied. "I can stick around and wait."

"It may take a while."

"I can wait."

I reached over to my night stand and grabbed my glasses. After putting them on, I carefully got off my bed and winced a little bit after my feet touched the carpet.

I walked out of my bedroom with an angry look on my face. I wasn't angry at Greasy. I was angry at my mom, Atticus, and Wyatt.

If Atticus or Wyatt say anything mean to me or my dad, I'll show them what it feels like to be made fun of! If Mom leaves me to be beaten again, then I'm really going to call Dad what's going on, even though he doesn't have any good reception for his phone.

_Be angry but stay calm, Beatrice! _I thought to myself as I walked down the hall. _Think ocean waves, whales, pan flutes, soothing piano music, stay calm! Think calm thoughts! THINK CALM THOUGHTS! TAKE ACTION IF THINGS GO CRAZY! BUT THINK! CALM! THOUGHTS!_

When I entered the living room, Atticus and Wyatt looked at me with their eyes narrowed. To show firmness and anger, I crossed my arms.

Then Mom walked out of the kitchen with a black tank top, solid orange skirt, and a solid blue jacket as her outfit of the day.

"Beatrice, apologize to Wyatt and Atticus." She demanded.

Still with the angry look on my face, I blinked slowly.

"Apologize them for what?" I asked bitterly.

Usually, I'm the person who forgives people. But for people like Atticus and Wyatt, I'm not that person who forgives people. I'm sorry but sometimes I act like a very bitter person when someone ticks me off real good.

"Beatrice!" Mom exclaimed. "You know what you did! Don't lie! Now apologize to Atticus and Wyatt…right…NOW."

I glared at Atticus and Wyatt.

"SORRY." I said without any hint of forgiveness.

"That's more like it." Wyatt said.

"Now, Beatrice," Atticus began, "if you want to avoid any trouble from us, then you must follow these new rules. Things are going to change now that Wyatt and I will be staying with you and Scarlett, my little tator tot."

In my head, I made a gagging noise on that stupid nickname.

"Rule number one, if someone asks you if you're related to me, then you say that I'm your uncle." Atticus said. "Rule number two, you do not talk back to me, Scarlett, or my son. Rule number three, don't speak unless you're spoken to. And rule number four, if you tell anyone about Wyatt and me living with you and Scarlett, I'm going to send you to a juvenile detention center. Do I make myself clear?"

Pause.

"Eat my shorts." I mumbled.

"What?" Atticus asked.

"I said, 'Yeah, sure'."

"All right. Now, you're going to be staying here by yourself until the evening comes. Scarlett will be playing bingo, Wyatt will be seeing his girlfriend, and I will be selling used cars. If you plan to leave the house around noon, you have an hour and a half time limit. If you don't come back when that time limit's up, you'll be missing out the signing of these packages that will be delivered here. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

Then, Wyatt and Atticus got up from the couch and walked towards the front door…not before kissing Mom on the cheek.

Mom walked into the kitchen and came back out a few seconds later with a white handbag.

"You behave yourself, Beatrice." Mom said. "If you don't behave, you're in for a whole lot of trouble."

Then, Mom walked to the front door and exited.

I walked in to the kitchen and began to think about what I should have for breakfast.

As I walked, the cold kitchen floor made my feet tingle a little bit. I'm still thinking about putting on some aloe vera on my legs and feet. I'm sure that it'll bring down the stinging tingling feeling on my burnt legs and feet.

Anyway, a thought came to me as I walked to the refrigerator. I'm going to have a zucchini and a cucumber for breakfast (Call me unusual if you want but it's not my fault that I like my green foods.).

I opened up the fridge and took out a cucumber and zucchini. Then, I ran some cold water on them. I took a knife out of one the counter drawers and sliced off two ends of the cucumber. Then, I began to slice up the cucumber and zucchini, making them into 'green veggie chips'.

I, then, walked to the pantry and grabbed a paper plate. I placed the cumberer and zucchini slices on the plate and put the knife in the sink. I'll get that later.

_I don't care if Greasy looks at me funny when he sees me eating sliced vegetables. _I thought as I walked to my bedroom with the plate in my right hand. _I don't care about how he would react to that. I know that not every kid in the United States likes to eat vegetables._

When I made it to my bedroom door, I stopped in front of it. I took a deep breath and entered my room.

Greasy was leaning his back against the wall while reading…well, actually, looking at…my scrapbook.

He chuckled as I munched on a zucchini slice while standing in the middle of my doorframe.

"What are you laughin' at?" I asked.

Almost immediately, Greasy looked up from the scrapbook in surprise.

"You're so quiet." He said. "What's that in your hand?"

"My breakfast." I replied as I sat down on my bed.

Then, Greasy, who was sitting on my right side, looked back at the pictures in the scrapbook. After I adjusted myself a little bit, Greasy gave me a better view of the scrapbook and the pictures inside it.

The picture on the right side of the scrapbook was a picture of me when I was five years old, my first day of kindergarten, the first and only time when I wore a dress. That light blue dress with white tights and black Mary Jane shoes still haunts me and I still remember how long Mom had to curl my long hair. On that day, I wasn't sure if she was trying to make me look like a six-year-old version of an American Girl doll on my first day of school or she was torturing me.

"You look so cute in that picture." Greasy said.

I rolled my eyes in a flattered and embarrassed matter.

"You should've heard the teachers and the other parents." I said. "They wouldn't stop giving me compliments."

"Did you like wearing that dress?" Greasy asked.

I shook my head.

"Why not?"

"It was really long. I tripped on it too many times." I replied.

"Did you hurt yourself?" Greasy asked.

"No."

I grabbed another piece of zucchini and ate it like a potato chip.

"I didn't hurt myself." I said. "The hem of the dress touched the floor and I would step on it. That's why I would trip on the dress. On that day, it was the first and only time that I've worn a dress."

"Really?" Greasy asked in surprise.

"Yeah. After wearing that dress-"

I was suddenly interrupted by a loud 'AH-CHOO'.

Greasy and I looked at my bedroom window, which was wide open.

"Who was that?" I asked as Greasy walked to the window.

A few seconds later, Greasy reaches out and brings in…


	12. Chapter 12: Always There

**Chapter Twelve**

**(Hey, y'all!**

**Sorry for taking so long. **

**Things have been really crazy for me and I was just really tired.**

**I will write a 'Tommy' chapter after a few or couple more 'Beatrice' chapters.**

**In the last chapter, Greasy told Beatrice to tell her mom that she's talking to Harvey while he and Beatrice were having a conversation. Harvey is the name of a rabbit from the 1950 movie, **_**Harvey, **_**starring James Stewart. But Harvey's no ordinary rabbit; he's an invisible white rabbit about six-feet-three-and-a-half inches tall. Throughout the movie, you can never really see Harvey until you actually see what he looks like when James Stewart's character hangs up a picture of himself and Harvey in one scene.**

**Here's the link that take you to a website that'll show you the picture:**

** clubs/classic-movies/images/5402668/title/harvey-wallpaper**

**Sorry if the picture scares you or creeps you out in any way.**

**Okay, anyway, here is the chapter that y'all have been waiting for.**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: AnonymousZGirl, if you're reading this, I would like to let you know that I'll get to work on another excerpt for **_**The Lost Birchwood **_**on Sunday. Let me know on how many excerpts you would like for me to write and I'll write them down.)**

**Wheezy:**

Thanks to Yen Sid giving me directions, I walked to Cressida's house. I thought that I should try to get to know her better.

_Maybe I should've bought Cressida a bouquet. _I thought as I got closer and closer to the front door of the red, white, and blue house. _No! That's a terrible idea! I don't know what kind of flowers Cressida likes, I'm still trying to get to know her better, and the flowers will be dead by the time I see Cressida again! If I bring flowers during my first actual private meeting with Cressida, she'll think that I'm turning into Greasy. He always made a move on the girl after having a first meeting before he met Beatrice. Wait a second, WHAT AM I THINKING?!_

Getting directions from Yen Sid wasn't really an easy thing to do (I know, asking for directions is very simple. But if you ask for directions from a powerful sorcerer or wizard, asking for directions isn't really easy.). After I asked for directions, Yen Sid said,

"Before I give you the directions, I'm going to give you a test. It's not like a multiple choice test that the humans take. It's a test of what your heart desires the most."

"What do you mean by 'heart desires the most'?" I asked after blowing out a cloud of smoke.

"What I'm trying to say is this. The test that I'm giving you is you choosing what's more important than anything. What's important to you and why?"

I didn't have to think twice about that one and I immediately replied,

"My cigars and cigarettes. They help me stay calm."

Yen Sid gave me a look of anger.

"You would give up your life for one box of the sticks of death?" He asked, sounding like Beatrice. "What would happen if you got stuck in a tar pit? A box of cigarettes isn't going to save your life. They don't have the hands to pull you out, they don't have the brain to think, and they don't have the heart to feel your pain or think that you're in danger. Cigarettes are just inanimate objects of death. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." I mumbled and inhaled on my five burning cigarettes.

"If you really love Cressida, you must give up your smoking habits and change yourself. Beatrice, Tommy, and Cressida will help you with your habits and you will have to do what they tell you. Got it?"

I nodded.

"The test that I'm going to give you is going to be like coming across a fork in the road. Choose the right path to walk on." Yen Sid said.

Then, after that, he gave me directions to Cressida's house.

Now that I'm standing in front of the front door of Cressida's house, I began to blow out huge clouds of smoke and think about what I should say.

_Once I talk to Cressida, _I thought, _I'm going straight down the path that'll led me to Cressida. I'll try not to talk about cigarettes or weapons._

Finally, I took a deep breath and held my right hand up, getting it ready to knock on the door.

…..

**Beatrice:**

"STUPID?!" Greasy exclaimed as he dropped Stupid on my bedroom floor in surprise. "_¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?! _Were you eavesdropping on us?"

Stupid stared at Greasy with a blank look on his face.

"Uh…" He began as he glanced around my room.

"_Vamos, Stupid, escupirla!_" Greasy exclaimed.

_What did he just say? _I thought.

"Uh, maybe?" Stupid finally said with confusion.

"Why were you standing by my bedroom window, Stupid?" I asked.

"I, uh, kind of, sort of, followed Greasy because Boss and I knew that Greasy would see you, Be-uh-triss. I also wanted to, uhhhh, ask you something."

I straightened up a little bit.

"What is it?" I asked.

Stupid aimed his eyes at the ceiling and paused for a really long time.

"Stupid, what is it? What do you want to ask?" I asked again as I limped towards the edge of my bed.

"Uh, am I a bad person?" Stupid finally asked as I sat down.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise and confusion.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Am I a bad person?" Stupid asked again.

After a brief pause, I asked,

"What makes you think that?"

Stupid nervously glances around the room and bites his lower lip.

"Is it because of how you and the other members of the Toon Patrol were treating other Toons and you got scared of the vision that the Magic Mirror displayed?" I asked.

Stupid nodded his head with a sad and scared look on his face.

"But am I a bad person?" He asked again, sounding like he's getting ready to cry.

I shook my head.

"Oh, no, Stupid." I said. "You're not a bad...person. You were just misguided by Judge Doom and probably by some things that made you do bad things."

"Really?" Stupid asked.

"_Muchacha's _right, Stupid." Greasy said. "But it's not only you who got misguided. Boss, Wheezy, Psycho, and I were also misguided."

"What's 'misguided'?"

I replied,

"It's when someone doesn't teach you the difference between right and wrong. When you're misguided, you usually choose the wrong choices and get into trouble after choosing the wrong things."

"You said that I'm misguided, right?" Stupid asked.

Greasy and I nodded.

"Duh, what happens to people who are misguided? Do they go to jail?" Stupid asked again.

I began to think over that for a few brief seconds.

"It depends on who they are or what situation the person is experiencing. There are very rare times when someone actually helps the misguided person the difference between right and wrong."

"Uh, so does that I have to go to jail…or get dipped?" Stupid asked again.

_Oh, man. Stupid's really nervous and full of questions. _I thought.

"No, Stupid." I replied. "You won't go to jail or get dipped. You just need to learn the difference between right and wrong. All you need is someone telling you what's right and wrong and…a second chance. In fact, everyone deserves a second chance. Even Smarty, Psycho, Wheezy, Sleazy, Slimy, and Flasher. Greasy also deserves a second chance."

Greasy smiled.

"Thank you, _muchacha." _He said.

Then, I heard Greasy mumble something about Jiminy Cricket in Spanish.

"Who's going to help me know the difference between right and wrong?" Stupid asked.

"Tommy, Cressida, and I will." I replied.

Then, Stupid smiled and…hugged me.

I hugged him back.

_For a weasel who isn't always the brightest bulb in the shed, _I thought, _Stupid actually has a heart of gold. Almost like Greasy. _


	13. Chapter 13: Wheezy and Kaitlyn

**Chapter Thirteen**

**(It seems that Stupid and Beatrice are becoming friends pretty quickly. Throughout the rest of this story and series, Stupid and Beatrice will show signs of being friends and pretty soon, Beatrice will reveal something to Greasy.**

**I really hate to say this but you'll have to read at least one or two more stories in this series until you'll find out about Beatrice's secret.**

**Anyway, here is the thirteenth chapter of this story.**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Wheezy:**

I didn't have the courage to knock on the door.

As soon as my hand was about to hit the door, I stopped all of the sudden.

_What if Cressida won't allow me to come in? _I thought. _What should I do if she doesn't invite me to come inside?_

But as many people say to me,

"Just give it a shot."

I took a deep breath and I knocked on the door, giving it three good taps with my fist.

After two seconds, I pressed my right ear on the door and listened to any footsteps or an 'I'm coming'.

"HOLD ON." A young female voice called from the inside.

I took my ear off the door and I blew out a couple clouds of smoke.

_I'm not exhaling any more blue clouds. _

Finally, after when it felt like FOREVER, the door opened.

Almost immediately, I straightened up and acted like I haven't done anything.

Then, Cressida comes out from behind the door with a white towel wrapped around her head while wearing a black shirt, white shorts, long red and black-striped socks, and Converse shoes. On the black shirt was a red outline of a spider web. I even noticed that Cressida wasn't wearing any eye make-up and she has a dog tag hanging around her neck.

"Oh, hey, Wheezy." Cressida said. "What brings you here?"

I inhaled on my cigarettes and carefully, I blew out a cloud of smoke.

"I was wandering around…didn't have a lot to do…and I just came by to see how things are going for you." I said with my voice growing raspy.

_Rats! _I thought. _For once, I would like to speak without my voice sounding awful and raspy._

"Things are going well for me, thank you." Cressida said.

"Yeah?" I asked. "That's good."

After a brief pause, Cressida asked me,

"Would you like to come in?"

_Okay, now we're getting somewhere. _I thought. _Remembering one of Greasy's attempts of trying to get a girl to like him during our high school years, this is a sign that a girl is really friendly. I'm glad that I mentally took notes of how to do things a long time ago. This is my first welcome that I've been given a long time ago._

Anyway, after nervously glancing around my surroundings in front of me, I said,

"Y-yeah, sure."

…..

**Beatrice:**

"I'm sorry." Greasy said after I hugged Stupid a few minutes ago.

I looked at Greasy with a concerned look on my face.

"Sorry for what?" I asked.

"I'm sorry that I didn't stick around or check on you last night when you burned your legs and feet." Greasy replied.

"Greasy, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. What happened last night was one of those times when you don't expect something terrible happening. Last night's event was one of my personal experiences that I probably might've dealt before. Heck, I'm used to that sort of thing happening."

_Yes, I'm used to it. _I thought. _But I believe that I'm deeply affected by several experiences of getting physically beaten and verbally abused. I don't like sharing my problems with anybody. I have a hard time trusting them. They look like they listen but they don't do anything to help me. I see the looks on their faces all the—_

"You're used to it?" Greasy asked.

I nodded.

"How do you not let those kinds of things bother you?" Stupid asked as he looked at my piano.

"Kind of roll with it. Act like nothing happened." I replied.

"But what if it was a serious situation?" Greasy asked.

"That's when I tell somebody about it."

"That's good. You mustn't keep a serious situation a secret. It'll hurt you too much if you keep it bottled up inside you, _muchacha. _I don't like to see you getting hurt."

_Thanks for your concern, Greasy. _I thought.

"I try not to get hurt but dangerous situations have a way of coming to me." I said. "If it makes you feel better, I'm going to my parents' bathroom and get their first aid kit and aloe vera. Can y'all wait here for a few minutes?"

Greasy and Stupid nodded.

Then, I limped towards the door and opened it.

"You got it?" Greasy asked as I walked out.

"I got it." I replied.

I carefully limped down the hallway. The fuzzy carpet felt like steel wool on the soles of my burnt feet and the cold breeze from the air-conditioning unit felt like sewing needles getting stabbed into my burnt legs. Yes, that's how I'm feeling things now because of my burnt legs and feet.

As I pass through the living room, the painful feelings that I'm feeling increases a little bit and I just grit my teeth, trying to fight the painful feelings like a soldier.

_Thank goodness that Atticus, Wyatt, and Mom aren't here right now. _I thought. _They would make this little journey difficult for me. Atticus would try to trip me while Mom watches and Wyatt tries many other cruel things to hurt me even more._

After trekking through the living room, I limped towards another hallway in front of me that led to my parents' bedroom and bathroom.

I limped in my parents' and I saw that Mom's laundry was scattered around the floor. It was a pretty big mess in here. Actually, I'm going to fix that sentence and change it to 'To my horror, Mom's laundry was scattered all over the room and seeing Atticus's luggage made me feel like I was going scream at the top of my lungs and run out of the house in randomness, craziness, and madness'.

It was true that Atticus—

Never mind that part. I'm going back to where I left off.

As I stepped over small piles of laundry, I limped to the bathroom and turned on the lights.

To my horror, I saw that my dad's simple hair products and best combs were packed into a Smucker's jelly box while Atticus put all of his personal hygiene items and hair products in the places where Dad—

Wait a minute. What's that on Mom's side of the bathroom?

I limped in the bathroom a little further and I saw that on Mom's side of the bathroom…was…*GAAAAASP*…a hair-dying kit.

_Oh, Momma, _I thought, _is a hair-dying kit really that necessary to change yourself?_

Then, I snapped myself out of it and bent down to my dad's side of the bathroom. I opened one of the drawers and took out a first aid kit and a bottle of aloe vera.

_Good. _I thought. _Now, time for me to go back to my room and get to work on applying bandage tape and aloe vera on my legs and feet. _

Thinking that walking and limping was a waste of time, I decided to hop on one foot for a while and then, I'll take off running to my room.

After closing the drawer, I turned off the lights and took off running.

It probably wasn't the best idea to run because the steel-wool feeling increased its pain. Now I feel like I'm running on a rug covered with thumb tacks. It was the most uncomfortable thing to feel and probably the most painful for me.

When I got closer to my room, I began to slow down and catch my breath a little bit.

_Try not to push yourself, Beatrice. _I thought as I stood next to my doorframe. _You're doing fine and stop pushing yourself._

"Duh, who are these two girls in this picture?" Stupid asked Greasy as I walked in.

"Oh, hey." Greasy said. "Got the first aid kit?"

"Right here." I thought as I patted it once.

"Duh, Bee-uh-trice, who are these two girls in this picture?" Stupid asked as I sat down on the edge of my bed.

I looked at the tiny frame that was once decorated with beautiful flowers. In the center of the frame was a picture of…me and Kaitlyn…when we were kids.

"That was me with best friend of mine when we were kids." I said.

"Which one's you?" Greasy asked.

I pointed my finger to the skinny little girl with blonde braided pigtails.

"Aww, you look so cute in that picture." Stupid said.

I rolled my eyes and I felt myself blush in a flattered matter.

"Who's the other girl?" Greasy asked. "In the picture, I mean."

"The other girl in the picture is Kaitlyn." I replied. "She was one of my best friends a long time ago."

"Really? How close were you with Kaitlyn?"

"Very close. She taught me some things and I taught her a lot of things."

"Excuse me for asking but where does Kaitlyn live?"

I nervously bit my lip and I pointed my finger up at the ceiling.

Greasy looked up and his eyes widened to the size of sugar plums.

"Uh, Kaitlyn lives in your roof?" Stupid asked.

I shook my head.

"No." I replied. "Kaitlyn is…"

"Kaitlyn passed away, Stupid." Greasy said. "But how? How did she pass away?"

I sighed sadly as I began to rub the aloe vera on my right leg.

"She shot herself in the head." I replied.

"Why did Kaitlyn do that?" Greasy asked.

"She was under a lot stress and pressure and her parents were about to have a divorce. Probably not taking anything anymore, Kaitlyn shot herself in the head. I know because I was a witness. I tried to help her but she acted like she didn't want to have anything with me. Before Kaitlyn shot herself, I was angry at her and I told her that if she wasn't going to let me help her, she will be on her own."

"What happened after that?" Stupid asked.

"It's just as I said before, Stupid. Kaitlyn shot herself in the head. I can still remember hearing the loud gunshot noise and I still remember seeing Kaitlyn lying down on the park grounds with the gun in her hand."

"And when did this happen?" Greasy asked.

I took a deep breath as I adjusted my glasses and rubbed some aloe vera on my left leg.

"I was thirteen when Kaitlyn died." I said. "After she died, along with the things that my mom would say, I find it hard to talk to people. I didn't like the idea of discussing my problems with anybody…and…yeah."

Greasy patted me on my back.

"I'm glad that you told us why you don't talk much." He said. "If I had known some time ago, I would've helped you out."

"Duh, if I had met this Kaitlyn, I would've told her that she was lucky to have a friend like you, Bee-uh-trice." Stupid said.

I looked at Stupid.

"I would've said the same if she were still alive." I said.

"I would, too." Greasy said.

I took the bandage tape out of the first aid kit and I began to wrap it around my legs.

"You know that we're here for you, _muchacha._" Greasy said. "If you have a problem, you can talk about it, if you want to. I'm not going to make you talk because that'll be your decision."


	14. Chapter 14: Improvisation and Promises

**Chapter Fourteen**

**(In the previous chapter, I mentioned that Beatrice had a secret that she's going to reveal in one of the next few stories.**

**The part in the previous chapter when Beatrice talked to Greasy and Stupid about Kaitlin wasn't the big secret. It's something else.**

**I'm still not going to reveal it to you until the next few stories.**

**Okay, now for the (probably not-so) big news:**

**I know it's kind of late for this but I'm going to say this anyway:**

**Shirley Temple, former child actress, died at the age eighty-five on February 10****th****. Keep her friends and family members in your prayers as they're going through a tough time right now.**

**The only films that I can think of right now that Shirley Temple played in were **_**Curly Top, Heidi, **_**and **_**Baby, Take A Bow. **_**They were some pretty good films.**

***sighs***

**Okay, now we'll get on with the story.**

**Enjoy this chapter and this story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: Sorry for not posting this chapter. School was really crazy for me and I couldn't find the time to post or write this chapter and I even fell asleep while working on excerpts for **_**The Lost Birchwood.**_** I'll try my best to get a chapter done on time or find a good time to post it.)**

**Wheezy:**

As Cressida and I sat down on the living room couch, I nervously began to smoke big clouds of smoke. In fact, the clouds of smoke were so big that they covered the ceiling of the living room.

"So, uh," I began nervously, "what do you have on your dog tag?"

"An outline of a dove with Yen Sid's hat on its little head." Cressida replied.

After blowing out another cloud of smoke, I asked,

"You got a dog tag from Yen Sid, too?"

"Yeah but how did you know that Yen Sid gave me the dog tag?" Cressida asked back.

"I had a meeting with Yen Sid, Beatrice, and Thomas." I said, still with nervousness. "Yen Sid gave Beatrice and Thomas dog tags before the meeting was about to come to a close. I didn't see what the outlines looked like but Yen Sid said that the dog tags were supposed to protect Beatrice and Tommy from Judge Doom."

Then, Cressida noticed that the ceiling was covered with my cigarette smoke. She looked back at me with concern.

"Are you okay?" She asked. "Is something bothering you?"

I coughed four times and then, I wheezed a couple of times.

"I'm sorry." I said with my raspy voice and coughed again. "I don't want to say this but…" I blew out another cloud of smoke. "…I'm really nervous. This is the first time that…I've been alone with a girl."

I was about to inhale and exhale a big round of cigarette smoke, just because I'm trying to calm down, Cressida said,

"Wheezy, take the cigarettes out of your mouth, take a deep breath, and calm down."

I looked at her with a baffled look on my face but I didn't waste time to take my six burning cigarettes out of my mouth and squished them with my fingers to extinguish the flame…

…..

**Beatrice:**

As soon as Greasy was done saying, "I'm not going to make you talk because that'll be your decision", he also added,

"Stupid and I are with you all the way."

Then, Stupid sang,

"Duh, _jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way._"

Greasy and I looked at Stupid and laughed.

"Ha, ha, ha! Not that 'all the way'!" Greasy laughed. "I mean that no matter what, you and I…ha, ha, ha…will help _muchacha _in her times of trouble!"

I slowly stopped laughing when I said,

"Yeah! Exactly what Greasy said. And Christmas was a few weeks ago."

Then, Greasy laughed slowly and finally, he took a deep breath and stopped laughing.

"What did you get for Christmas, _muchacha_?" Greasy asked as he wandered around my room and looked at the pictures that I took and the drawings that I drew in the past.

"I got a sweater…a songbook for my piano…and…uh…a tape recorder." I replied.

Greasy looked at me with surprise.

"A tape recorder?" He asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I usually ask for either useful things or things that'll keep me entertained for a long period of time when it comes to Christmas and my birthday." I said.

"Uh, what kind of things keep you entertained for a long time?" Stupid asked.

I bit the inside of my lip and exhaled pretty loudly.

"Y'all might think that I'm crazy but I ask for books, puzzles, and complicated piano pieces." I said.

Stupid looked at me with a predictable blank look on his face. That's the same reaction that other people would give me after Christmas break or my birthday.

"Why?" Stupid asked.

"Come on, Stupid." Greasy said. "_Muchacha _likes to read and solve problems. Reading and problem-solving are a couple of the many talents that _muchacha _has."

"Even working weapons?"

Greasy looked at me, waiting for an answer.

"I know how but I usually prefer not to try them out." I said.

"Do you know how to work a gun?" Greasy asked.

"Yes but I don't like to use a gun. Hearing the loud sound reminds me about Kaitlin."

"Okay, what Stupid and I asked were really dumb things to ask. Is it all right if I ask you if you know how to use a typewriter?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, it's completely fine." I replied. "And yes, I know how to use a typewriter."

Then, just as Greasy was about to say something, I heard a car drive up on the driveway.

"Who could that be?" I asked and walked to my window.

I looked to my left and I saw that Mom has come back from the stupid bingo lounge.

"My mom's home." I said without any excitement in my voice.

"If you have to stand up for yourself, just do it." Greasy said. "It's time that your mother should stop abusing you."

I looked at Greasy.

"And if she asks me if I'm talking to you, do I still have to tell her that I'm talking to Harvey or no?" I asked.

Greasy nodded.

"Yen Sid told me one time that if I'm talking to you and if anyone asks, just tell them that you're talking to Harvey. Or improvise if you don't like the Harvey idea." He said.

"I'm glad you told me." I said. "I felt a little silly when I told my mom that I was talking to an invisible rabbit."

Greasy laughed a little bit.

"You have to admit that it was pretty funny." He said and laughed a little more.

Stupid laughed along with Greasy.

I blushed, glanced around my room nervously, and shrugged my shoulders.

Greasy, while he was beginning to chuckle, walked over to me and sat down on my right side of the bed.

"Aw, it's all right." He said to me. "We all have different opinions. It's okay if you found the 'Harvey' idea weird."

I sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, you're right, Greasy." I said. "You're right about that."

I was about to say something to Stupid when Greasy said,

"And _muchacha?"_

I turned my head back to Greasy.

"Yeah?" I asked.

Then, Greasy placed his left arm on my shoulders, leaned in, and kissed me on my right temple.

"I'm proud of you." He said. "You're smart, beautiful, kind, and funny. I really like you when you're those four things."

I did a small half-smile.

"Thank you." I said.

"Don't let anyone tell you that you aren't any of the four things." Greasy said. "Promise me that you'll remember what I said to you."

I put my right hand up to my chin and my left hand on my heart.

"Birchwood's honor." I said.

Then, Greasy held his right hand in front but in between us with his pinky finger standing and curled up.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"This is how I make promises with women and other girls." Greasy replied. "We hook our tiny fingers together for a few seconds."

_Oh, this is a pinky promise. _I thought. _Gee, I thought people don't do that anymore._

Although it was questionable, I hooked my left pinky finger with Greasy's. It was really awkward because one, it was unusual, and two, I haven't really done that sort of thing in my life.

Then, after a few seconds, Greasy and I unhooked pinkies and arms, I reached towards my plate and was about to pick up another slice of zucchini or cucumber.

To my confusion, my hand couldn't find any zucchini or cucumber slices. I looked at my plate and saw that it was completely clean. Not a single slice of zucchini or cucumber was on the plate.

"Did you eat my zucchinis and cucumbers?" I asked Greasy.

"No." He replied with a confused look on his face.

"Beatrice, who are you talking to?" Mom asked on the other side of the door.

Then, Stupid burped.

Greasy and I looked at Stupid with suspicious looks on our faces. At first, Stupid looked nervous but after five seconds, Stupid grinned sheeplishly.


	15. Chapter 15: Naughty

**Chapter Fifteen**

**(Sorry. I can't think of anything to say to y'all.**

**Oh, wait!**

**Here is a link to a song that's going to be used in this chapter:  
**

** watch?v=dExxFRTwBsw**

**So…just enjoy the story and life as it goes.**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Beatrice:**

"Beatrice, don't make me ask again." Mom said. "Who are you talking to?"

"Don't say that you're talking to yourself." Greasy whispered to me. "That's another thing that Yen Sid said to me. If you say that you're talking to yourself, things aren't going to work out very well."

I nodded nervously and aimed my eyes and face at my bedroom door.

"Mom, I'm talking to another friend on the phone." I said. "I'm talking to…uh…Kathy Sellers."

I looked at Greasy with a look of confusion and worry, as if I were saying, "How's that?"

Greasy nodded and said,

"That'll do. Improvise if you would like to."

"Okay, Beatrice. You can't spend all of your time talking on the phone." Mom said. "Why don't you watch something on the television like a good girl?"

I rolled my eyes.

"No, Mom." I said. "I much rather read something. I don't feel like watching anything on TV today."

"Reading's for chumps." Mom said. "And you, Beatrice, are a chump."

Greasy jumped off my bed and despite of Mom not having the ability to see or hear Toons, Greasy yelled,

"_Cállate, quieres decir vieja bruja!_ _Que del muchacha leyó! Ella puede leer tanto como ella quiere!"_

What did Greasy say?

"Mom, why don't you just go back to the bingo lounge or do something else instead of calling me names or make fun of my love for literature?" I asked.

"I'm not going back to the bingo lounge because I just heard that it's closed for a small period of time. But I am going to dye my hair. If you need me, I'll be in the bathroom, DYING MY HAIR. Oh, and you can't stop me from dying my hair. I can do anything that I want because Abbot's not here!"

"Duh, who's Abbot?" Stupid asked.

"He's my father." I whispered.

"Don't spend all of your time in your room!" Mom said. "You don't want to end up like Old T. Tucker or Old Lady Juanita."

I rolled my eyes.

Then, I heard my mom walk away from my bedroom door.

I sighed in an irritated matter.

"Bilge rat." I muttered.

"What is that, by the way?" Greasy asked. "What is a bilge rat? I hear you say that a few times, even in your sleep."

I looked at Greasy with a crazy look on my face.

"You've been watching me sleep?" I asked.

Now, why on Earth is Greasy watching me sleep? Who is he? Dracula?

"Yeah." Greasy said. "_Lo siento. _It's hard for me to resist but I just don't like seeing you…upset…or depressed."

"First, let me define 'bilge rat' and then, we're going back to you watching me sleep." I said.

I cleared my throat.

"There are two definitions." I began. "First, a bilge rat is a rat that lives in the lowest part of a ship, which is the bilge. It's an insult usually exclaimed by pirates when they're talking about an evil or lazy person. The second definition is my personal way of defining 'bilge rat'. I use that term as either describing a really mean person or as a substitute for any obscene words that I don't like to use."

Greasy nodded.

"All right. Now I get it." He said.

"Okay, now let's go back to you watching me sleep." I replied.

…..

**Wheezy:**

"Well, Cressida, it was nice talking to you." I said as I walked out of Cressida's house. "I better head back to Toon Town before Boss begins to wonder about me."

"Come back anytime, Wheezy." Cressida replied. "I really enjoyed your company."

I gave her a small half-smile.

"See you some other time." I said.

"See you later!" Cressida replied and closed the front door.

I walked off the front porch and on to a sidewalk that would led me out of Cressida's neighborhood and into Toon Town. As I walked, I began to think about my time with Cressida.

No, Cressida and I didn't kiss. That's going to wait. I can't kiss a girl after knowing her for only a few days. It takes more than a few days to gain a girl's trust and kiss her.

Anyway, Cressida and I talked about how things are going for us, what is going on in Toon Town, the meanings of the outlines on the dog tags, and even how trying to cut back on an addiction is no Sunday school picnic. Well, Cressida talked about that part. She kind of talked like Beatrice when she started to talk about smoking.

"Smoking is a hard habit to break." Cressida said. "It isn't easy for anyone who smokes for a really long time. I know because my biological father smoked a lot before I moved here."

Although I can be pretty annoyed by girls who spend too much time reading, I decided to continue to give Cressida…and Beatrice a chance on helping me get rid of my smoking habits.

Again, as many people tell me,

"Rome"..."Greece"…or "Italy"…"wasn't built in one day."

…

**Third Person POV:**

Lights from the Magic Mirror once again began to flicker. Yen Sid looks up from his book and watches the flickering lights.

"Magic Mirror, what's up with the flickering lights?" Yen Sid asked. "Is Judge Doom giving you more frights?"

"Yen Sid, my friend and master, I find more trouble brewing." Magic Mirror replied. "I picked up a list written by Doom and had my personal viewing."

Yen Sid's eyebrows rise up in concern.

"Behold, this list of death with these names are what I found today." Magic Mirror said boldly. "Judge Doom wants their happiness to be taken away."

As the names were being displayed on the glass of the mirror, Yen Sid's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and his eyebrows rose in shock.

_This can't be good. _Yen Sid thought. _Ever since Doom came back to life again, things are continuing to get worse. I have the hope that Beatrice can stop Judge Doom._

…..

**Beatrice:**

By the time it was seven-fifty six, Mom, Wyatt, and Atticus were done with their daytime activities. Mom's hair transformed from a dirty blond to a PLATNIUM BLONDE, Wyatt came back home while smelling like a tropical fruit air freshener, and Atticus came back home with excitement in his voice.

"I'M GREAT! I'M LUCKY! I'M THE MOST BRILLIANT MAN IN THE WORLD!" Atticus exclaimed while he was still outside of the house.

Before Atticus and Wyatt came home, I got out of my room, due to giving Greasy and Stupid privacy for a private conversation with Yen Sid (via magic lamp) and because of my mom making me irritated after she said that I was going to wound up like two of the oldest people in our neighborhood. Plus, as Atticus predicted, some packages came to my house just some time after noon. I discovered that in the packages were car parts after my curiosity got the better of me. I had a feeling that those car parts were anything but good news.

After getting that feeling, I felt a lot of pressure building inside me because of what's going. First, Mom invites two strangers to live with us while Tommy and Dad are gone. Second, Atticus tells me that I should lie to anyone who has a tendency to be suspicious of him and or Wyatt. And last of all, since Dad and Tommy are gone, I could use some good advice to use. I would like to know to kick out Wyatt and Atticus out of my house without getting in trouble or chastised. I can use some good advice that can help me from going out of control.

Anyway, I was sitting on the living room couch, reading _The Crucible_, with Psycho sleeping on my bandage tape-covered feet when I heard Atticus's exclamations. Wyatt was lying on my dad's comfortable chair and Mom was doing something in the kitchen when they heard Atticus.

"Dad's home!" Wyatt exclaimed.

Mom ran out of the kitchen with excitement and after I saw her with her platinum blond hair, I gasped…in my head.

Atticus entered the living room with a notepad, a pen, and a big wad of cash in his hand.

"Did you sell some good cars today, sweet potato?" Mom asked Atticus with a smile on her face.

"Heck yeah, I did!" Atticus replied. "Thanks to my lucky Oil of Violets hair oil, I earned an excellent amount of money!"

Atticus looks at Wyatt with a confident smile.

"Wyatt, take this notepad and pen. You're still going to learn how to do the family business and learn how to make a living." Atticus said.

"Okay." Wyatt said with hesitation.

He gets off my dad's chair and I watch him walk towards Atticus. I can tell that what I'm about to see is probably going to be really interesting.

"Write down these prices and try to guess my total profit for today." Atticus said.

Psycho woke up and he looked like he wanted to watch the conversation with me.

"What did I miss?" He asked.

"Nothing yet." I whispered. "You're about to see something really interesting, boring, and crazy."

Then, Atticus began to give Wyatt the prices of the used cars as Wyatt began to write them down on the paper.

"The first car originally cost three hundred and sixty-seven dollars." He began. "I sold it for two thousand, one hundred and ninety-five dollars. The second car originally cost two hundred and seventy-two dollars. I sold it for five thousand, nine hundred and one dollars."

Atticus was talking so fast that Wyatt was scrunching his eyebrows in frustration and scribbling something on the notepad.

"Will you slow down?" Wyatt asked Atticus. "You're going too fast!"

"Just keep writing." Atticus replied. "Anyway, the third car originally cost six hundred and thirty-three dollars. I sold it for eight thousand and twenty-six dollars. And finally, the forth car cost nine hundred and seventy-four dollars. I sold it for twelve thousand, eight hundred, and forty-one…BIG AMERICAN BOFFOS!"

Mom got so excited that she grabbed Atticus and kissed him hard on the cheeks. Despite of their excitement, Wyatt scribbled on the notepad, struggling to write down the right price. I listened very well and I began to do some very fast math work in my head.

"What was my profit for today?" Atticus asked Wyatt.

"Wait a minute, Dad, can you repeat-?" Wyatt began.

"Twenty-seven thousand, three hundred, and fifty dollars." I interrupted.

Everyone, Psycho, Mom, Wyatt, and Atticus looked at me with surprise.

"Check the paper if you don't believe me." I said to Mom, Atticus and Wyatt.

After a long pause, Mom, Atticus, Wyatt looked at the sheet of paper. Then after ten seconds, Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt gave me hard and cold stares.

"You're a little cheat!" Atticus exclaimed while he frowned. "You looked at the answer on the paper!"

"Wow!" Psycho whispered in surprise. "Smart Pretty Girly."

I gave Atticus a serious look on my face.

"From all the way over here?" I asked. "How can that be? I'm fifteen feet away from y'all and there's no way that I can see the paper, even with my glasses."

The frowns from Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt's face grew from mildly irritated glares to 'I'm going to kill you' Terminator stares. That kind of stare, the last one that I've mentioned, is the one you should definitely avoid from my momma. Even some of her friends and maybe some students from many of my schools give me the 'I'm going to kill you' Terminator stares when they believe that I've done something terrible or awful.

"Excuse me?" Atticus asked me as he walked towards me. "Are you being smart with me? Because if you are being smart with me, I'm going to punish you!"

I frowned in confusion.

"Punish me for being smart?" I asked. "Pfft! Come on! I need a better reason than that!"

Atticus glanced at my book and then, he snatched it out of my hands and threw the book across the living room.

Psycho took off running like a dog chasing after a stick. After getting close to the book, Psycho bends down and picks it up with his mouth, as if he were a dog.

No one, but I, noticed Psycho's actions.

"I'm going to punish you because of how you're reading too many books!" Atticus exclaimed angrily. "A girl can't those kinds of books because she'll develop these dangerous ideas and her brain will be nothing but mush!"

"That's not true!" I exclaimed.

"You better listen to my dad, Beatrice!" Wyatt yelled. "You better or else!"

"Shut up, Wyatt!"

"Go to your room, Beatrice!" Atticus exclaimed.

I looked at him and I shook my head.

"Go to your room right now!" Atticus exclaimed again. "That is where a bad person goes when they're in trouble and when a person is bad, they need to be punished!"

"'Person'?" I asked.

"Go…to…your…room."

I gave Atticus, Mom, and Wyatt one last angry stare and I stomped to my room.

_Oh, man. _I thought as I walked down the hall that led to my room. _I wish Dad were here. How would he handle a situation like this? How would he do it? I could use some fatherly advice._

"The sooner Beatrice goes to school, the better!" Mom exclaimed.

…..

**Third Person POV:**

"Judge Doom is growing more powerful than ever." Yen Sid said to himself. "I have a feeling that in his new form, he's going to do many types of bad things once he meets the people from his list, especially Beatrice."

He sighed.

"I'm going to have a talk with the Toon Patrol again." He said. "I know that I've been calling meetings with them a few times but they are still trying to get used to being the good guys. Sometimes too many meanings happen to good guys."

Yen Sid opens his spell book and flips through for a good spell to use.

…

**Beatrice:**

The very late night time hours came after I closed my twenty-sixth book, _The Mysterious Benedict Society_. It was twelve-forty-five and everyone else was asleep.

I bet that you want to know what happened before I read twenty-six books.

Well, after coming into my room and locking the door, Greasy and Stupid were nowhere to be found. Psycho and I looked all over my room and we couldn't find Greasy and Stupid anywhere.

"Where could they be?" I asked as I sat down on my bed. "Greasy said that he and Stupid will stick around for some time after their meeting with Yen Sid."

"Maybe Greasy's busy." Psycho said and placed his head on my lap.

"Yeah, you could be right."

Then, Atticus exclaimed,

"Thanks to my lucky hair oil and fat wad of cash, let's go to town and spend the money!"

Mom and Wyatt cheered.

"Bilge rats." I mumbled.

Then, I heard the sounds of crashing, feet stomping on the floor, and the door opening and closing.

After I heard the truck driving off the driveway, I walked out of my room, into the kitchen, and made myself some boiled eggs and chopped zucchini for dinner.

Then, after some time, Psycho left and I read twenty-six books in one night while I thought about getting some good advice.

_In books that involved knights, princesses, dragons, or anything like those, _I thought, _usually, the hero of the story would ask for help from a wise elder. In the end, the hero gets their happy ending…usually. That's how the stories are written._

It's the same every time I'm reading something.

The hero begins with a sad and life, he's chosen to do something, he saves the world, gets his girl, and the hero has a happy ending.

That's just how it is in stories.

Whatever the author wanted to make the other people see what they see, he or she will grab several sheets of paper, a pen, and pencil and write things down their way. Fantasy or reality, adventure or drama, comedy or drama, whatever the author wants to write, they let their fingers and their minds do the work.

What if my life were a written story? What if I had a giant pencil and I can erase the unwanted events that I had to experience? That would be cool. I can even write my own ending. I could write a story about my life and I can make some changes.

_When a person is bad, they need to be punished! _Atticus's voice echoed in my head.

But what about the characters in the stories that a lot of people have read throughout time? They are famous because of some of the things that happen in their stories.

"_Jack and Jill went up the hill,_" I began,

"_To fetch a pail of water._

_So they say, the subsequent fall was inevitable._

_They never stood a chance._

_They were written that way."_

I imagine Jack and Jill falling down from the top the hill.

"_Innocent victims of their story."_

I paused for a minute to think of a couple of good characters with interesting stories.

"_Like Romeo and Juliet," _

I began to think about the things that the little couple did in ol' William Shakespeare's most famous romantic play.

"_Twas written in the stars before they even met._

_That love and fate and a touch of stupidity,_

_Would rob them of their hope of living happily."_

I began to imagine the deaths of Romeo and Juliet…

"_The endings are often a little bit gory."_

…and almost immediately, I stopped thinking about that.

"_I wonder why they didn't just change their story." _I said.

_When a person is bad, they should be punished! _Atticus's voice shouted in my head again.

"_We're told we have to do what we're told but surely…" _

_You got to stand up for yourself. _Dad said to me one time.

"_Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty." _I said.

That's true because…well…

"_Just because you find that life's not fair,_

_It doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it._

_If you always take it on the chin and wear it,_

_Nothing will change."_

_I'm twenty-three, you're seventeen. _Wyatt's voice echoed in my head.

"_Even if you're little, you can do a lot,_

_You mustn't let a little thing like 'little' stop you._

_If you sit around and let them get on top,_

_You might as well be saying,_

_You think that it's okay,_

_And that's not right!" _I said without trying to wake everybody in the house.

_Who else might be a good example for this kind of situation? _I thought.

Oh, here's one.

"_Cinderella, _

_In the cellar,_

_Didn't have to do much as far as I can tell._

_Her godmother was two-thirds fairy._

_Suddenly her lot was a lot less scary._

_But what if you haven't got a fairy to fix it?_

_Sometimes you have to make a little mischief."_

Several hours ago, Atticus gave me the first pratical advice that I can use. Instead of saying, 'When a child is bad', he said, 'When a person is bad'. I also began to realize that children can punish their parents…only if they REALLY deserve it.

_Thanks to my lucky Oil of Violets hair oil…_Atticus's voice echoed in my head.

_Well, you're luck is about to change, Mr. Atticus Dubois. _I thought.

As I walked towards my bedroom door and quietly opened it, I thought,

_Just because you find that life's not fair,_

_It doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it._

_If you always take it on the chin and wear it, _

_Nothing will change._

I carefully and quietly slink through the living room and into the hallway that led to my parents' bathroom.

_Even if you're little, you can do a lot,_

_You mustn't let a little thing like 'little' stop you._

_If you sit around and let them get on top you,_

_Might as well be saying,_

_You think that it's okay,_

_And that's not right!_

_And if it's not right… _I thought.

I entered my parents' bathroom and I turned on the dim mirror lights.

I walked to my mom's side of the bathroom and picked up a bottle of Mom's hair dye. Then, I walked over to Dad's side of the bathroom and I picked up Atticus's purple Oil of Violets hair oil.

**Oil of Violets Hair Oil For Men. **The label on the bottle of Atticus's hair oil said.

**Platinum Blonde Hair Dye, Extra Strong. **The label on the bottle of Mom's hair dye said. **Keep out reach of children.**

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

That's perfect.

I unscrewed the cap off of the hair oil bottle and dumped half of the contents down the sink. Then, I pulled off the cap of Mom's hair dye and I began to squeeze a lot of the dye inside the bottle of the hair oil.

_In the slip of a bolt, there's a tiny revolt. _I thought.

_The seeds of a war in the creak of a floor board,_

_A storm can begin with a flap of a wing,_

_The tiniest mite packs the mightiest sting!_

Then, I began to shake up the contents in the bottle of hair oil.

_Every day, _I thought, _starts with a tick of a clock._

_All escapes starts with a click and a lock._

I screw both the caps back on the bottles and placed the bottles of hair products back to their original places.

Abruptly, despite of the burning pain on my legs, I ran out of the bathroom, through the living room, and down the hall that led me to my bedroom, Tommy's bedroom, and another bathroom.

I ran down to the bathroom and locked the door after entering.

"_If you're stuck in your story and to get out,_

_You don't have to cry, _

_You don't have to shout!" _I said.

I squeeze some toothpaste on my toothbrush and I began to brush my teeth.

"'_Cause if you're little you can do a lot, _

_You mustn't let a little thing like, 'little' stop you._

_If you sit around and let them get on top, _

_You won't change a thing!" _

I spit the toothpaste out of my mouth and rinsed the sink.

"_Just because you find that life's not fair, _

_It doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it!_

_If you always take it on the chin and wear it," _ I whispered as I left the bathroom.

"_You might as well be saying,_

_You think that it's OK._

_And that's not right_!"

I took a deep breath and despite of my legs, I did a series of front flips towards my bedroom door.

After doing ten flips, I closed my bed room door.

"_And if it's not right!_

_You have to put it right!" _I said as I walked towards my bed.

"_But nobody else it gonna put it right for me!_

_Nobody but me is going to change my story!_

_Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty!"_ I concluded as I got on my bed and slid my legs and feet under my sheet and covers.

I sighed a sigh of relief and satisfaction before I switch off my nightstand lamp with a CLICK.


	16. Chapter 16: Weird Hair

**Chapter Sixteen**

**(Sorry for taking so long on uploading the last chapter. I was so tired this week that I began to fall asleep while writing the chapters and wake around two o'clock in the morning. Sometimes I would find my laptop still on my lap on and I would sometimes find myself leaning forward with my fingers still on my keyboard.**

**I hate that! DX**

**School stinks at this time of year for me but the good news is that I'll have a lot of time writing more stories.**

**Yay! :D**

**All right. **

**So here is this chapter.**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!  
**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Third Person POV:**

Around eight-thirty in the morning, a slightly corpulent, black-haired, forty-five year old figure, also known as 'Atticus Dubois', slowly tosses his legs off the guest bed as he slowly wakes up from his nightly slumber.

Scarlett Birchwood sits up on her bed and sighs heavily as she takes off her silky blood red sleeping mask.

Wyatt Dubois snores for a brief second as Atticus drags his feet on the living room. A few seconds later, Wyatt opens his eyes and kicks off the blanket that covered his scrawny during the night.

"Gosh…" Wyatt mumbled.

Atticus walked in to Scarlett's bathroom while sneezing a couple of times.

"Bless you!" Scarlett called from her bedroom.

"Thank you." Atticus replied.

Then, Scarlett's cell phone rings a couple of times.

Scarlett's conversation is nothing but gibberish as Atticus grabs his bottle of hair oil.

"Wyatt!" Atticus called. "Come in to Scarlett's bathroom!"

Ten seconds later, Wyatt enters the bathroom as Atticus begins to apply his hair with hair oil.

"What is it?" Wyatt asked.

After rubbing in the oil, Atticus smiles and says to Wyatt,

"My son, today's the day that I'm going to bring you to work. What do you say?"

Wyatt shrugged.

"I don't know." He said. "What do you say, Dad?"

As Atticus applies more hair oil, he replied,

"I say appearance is nine-tenths of the law. Customers don't buy cars; they buy me, which is why I take pride in my appearance. Well-oiled hair, clean shave, a snappy suit. Go ahead and get dressed for a big day, Wyatt."

Scarlett ends her cell phone conversation as soon as Atticus continues to add even more hair oil.

"It's going to be a big day of learning, son." Atticus said. "There's a sucker born every minute and we're going to take them for all they got!"

…..

**Beatrice:**

After getting out of bed and walking in to the kitchen, I bit the insides of my cheeks to prevent myself from laughing.

Why?

Because I am already beginning to imagine Atticus with platinum blonde hair and I don't want anyone to know that I mixed Atticus's hair oil with my mom's hair dye.

Right now, I am making my breakfast, a breakfast salad with bits of breakfast sausage, as Mom (who was wearing a blood red silk night gown that was a size too small) and Wyatt began to search for something that's good to them, probably some cereal with a lot of sugar in it.

"What would you like to drink, Wyatt?" Mom asked.

"Can I have some coffee with cream?" Wyatt asked back.

"There is no coffee in this house." I said, interrupting Mom.

Brief pause.

I know that Wyatt's angry at me.

"Why is there no coffee?!" Wyatt exclaimed.

"Drinking coffee increases the risk of getting osteoporosis when you get older." I said as I take out a plastic bottle of pulp-free Minute Maid orange juice (Yum.). "Drink milk, water, or orange juice instead. Other recommendations? Eat and drink anything with calcium and vitamin D. If you take my given recommendation-"

"What the heck is os—os-?"

"Osteoporosis is a bone disease. Your bones become very brittle and they can break very easily if-"

"Beatrice," Mom interrupted, "stop rambling and eat."

I rolled my eyes, grabbed my breakfast, walked to the table, and began to eat. I even began to act like I didn't—

Whoa, where did-? Where did that ring of smoke come from?

I looked up from my breakfast and I saw Wheezy sitting across from me with five burning cigarettes in his mouth.

"What's up, Wheezy?" I asked.

"Just *cough, cough* checking on you." Wheezy replied in a raspy voice. "Greasy's really busy with something *cough, cough, cough* and since Psycho, Stupid, and boss are also busy, I kind of volunteered to check on you for Greasy."

I nodded in understanding as I sipped on my orange juice.

"Well," I said after setting my bottle of orange juice on the table, "you can tell Greasy that I'm doing all right. I'm just going to wait for a miracle and hope for the best."

Wheezy nodded as he inhaled the deadly toxins from his burning cigarettes.

"I'll *cough* keep that in mind." He said. "I haven't that kind of optimism from anybody for a long time."

Oh, I can hear Atticus walking down the hall.

I glanced to my right as I ate my breakfast.

"Oh, boy, here comes Atticus." I whispered.

Wheezy looked at Atticus and he coughed and choked on his cigarettes after looking.

"What did you do?!" Wheezy exclaimed at me.

"Okay, my son!" Atticus exclaimed happily as he entered the kitchen. "Heir to the throne, today's the day we diddle the customers!"

Wyatt looked at Atticus with…platinum blonde hair with twenty-five percent of black hair remaining on his head. Wyatt's eyes were as wide as sugar plums as he stared at Atticus in shock.

"What's the matter? What are you looking at?" Atticus asked Wyatt.

After a brief pause, Atticus smiled at Mom.

"Sweet Potato, where's my breakfast?" He asked.

"Here we are, my heartstrings." Mom replied and grabbed two bowls of Fruit Loops (yuck) off the kitchen counter.

Almost immediately after turning around, Mom's eyes were as big as dinner plates and shrieked in surprise. While doing that, she tossed her arms in up in the air and the Fruit Loops from both bowls flew out and fell on the floor.

"SNICKERDOODLE…" Mom said to Atticus in a frightened whisper. "…what did you do to your HAIR?"

A brief pause is cued.

"MY HAIR?!" Atticus exclaimed in a frightened voice.

As I aimed my eyes at my breakfast, I snickered quietly.

"What did you do?" Wheezy asked me.

Then, Atticus screamed in blue murder and I heard him fall down on the floor with a thump, giving me a thought that he probably fainted in shock and terror.

"I added my mother's hair dye in Atticus's hair oil." I whispered to Wheezy.

"Did you really-?" Wheezy asked me in surprise.

I nodded my head, smiled, sipped some orange juice, and snickered.

Wheezy began to glance around the kitchen for a couple minutes in an awkward matter and then, he brought two of fingers up to his burning cigarettes and took them out of his mouth. Then, Wheezy began to smile, chuckle, and blew out a huge cloud of smoke. The smoke cloud transformed into person laughing really hard before the cloud faded away.

I was really impressed with that despite of smoking being very hazardous to Wheezy's health.

After setting my orange juice down, I said to Wheezy,

"Despite of smoking being a health hazard, that was actually pretty good."

"Thank you." Wheezy said.

_Should I ask Wheezy how he developed his smoking problem and how is fur turned blue? _I thought and then, I shook my head. _Nah, maybe not a good idea. I'll have to figure it out myself._


	17. Chapter 17: Used Cars and Traditions

**Chapter Seventeen**

**(Hey, y'all!**

**Tommy will be showing up after the next two or three chapters!**

**Sorry if there were too many chapters about Beatrice.**

**Note: If y'all haven't seen or read **_**James and the Giant Peach **_**and or **_**Matilda, **_**watch or read them at least more than twice before reading this story. Why? Because if you read a fanfic before you watch a movie or read a book that you haven't seen or read either before or in a long time, the original movie or book will be completely boring and you will be pointing out some things.**

**Fun Fact:**

**According to one website about banned books, **_**Charlotte's Web **_**was banned in a Kansas district because some people thought that talking animals in fictional stories were considered evil.**

**Crazy, huh?**

**Speaking of crazy, this chapter is going to be one of the craziest chapters of this story. So be prepared for the craziness. **

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: For those of you who have a tendency to coming up with ideas after reading or watching something, please be advised that not all crazy ideas come with pleasant results. But if you just came up with an idea, think twice before actually completing the idea and go ahead and do it. You didn't hear it from me.**

**PPS: This chapter is going to give you the reason why Greasy calls Beatrice **_**'muchacha'.**_**)**

**Greasy:**

Psycho and I were just walking down Main Street of Toon Town, minding our own business, when the rabbit…*sigh*…Roger Rabbit began to follow us. I know that _muchacha _doesn't want us to hold a grudge on…Roger but it's going to take more than making amends to warm up to him.

"Hey!" Roger called to us.

For the _muchacha, _Psycho and I looked at Roger.

"Where are you going?" Roger asked us.

"See Pretty Girly." Psycho replied after exchanging a glance with me.

"We're seeing _muchacha." _I said to Roger.

He looks at us in confusion.

"Who's Pretty Girly and _muchacha_?" Roger asked. "Are they new in Toon Town?"

I shook my head.

"No, Roger." I said. "We're going over to see Beatrice."

Roger's eyes widened.

"Really?" He asked. "Can I tag along with you?"

I exchanged glances with Psycho and reluctantly, I nodded.

As soon as the three of us began to walk down the street, Roger asked,

"Who is or what's '_muchacha'_, by the way?"

"'_Muchacha' _is a word in Spanish and it means 'girl'." I replied. "Since I met Beatrice, I've been calling her '_muchacha'."_

"So after all this time, you've been calling Beatrice 'girl'?"

_Debo explicar la tradición al conejo?_I thought.

"Well, I call her 'girl' in Spanish is because of a tradition that Javier, a boy who drew me, and his father created a long time ago." I explained. "Before I was drawn, Javier's father didn't have a wife. He found Javier on the streets and adopted him as his son. Thinking that Javier needed a mother's love, his father went around the United States and began to look for a wife. Javier, however, couldn't go with his father because he had other things to do with his father's mother. Just as Javier's father was about to give up, he found a loving and understanding woman and he brought her with him. As soon as Javier's father and the woman arrived at the house of Javier's grandmother, the grandmother, who was pretty old and really crazy at the time, spotted the woman and exclaimed, '_No me digas tu nombre, muchacha! Dame un año de adivinar cuál es su nombre. Si creo que el nombre correcto, entonces te casarás con mi hijo. Si yo no creo que su nombre dentro de un año, va a vivir el resto de su vida sin mi hijo!"_

Roger and Psycho looked at me in confusion.

"What did the grandmother say?" Roger asked.

"She said, 'Don't tell me your name, _muchacha'."_ I began. "'Give me a year to guess what your name is. If I guess the right name, then you'll be married to my son. If I don't guess your name within a year, you will live the rest of your life without my son'."

"Jumpin' jeepers. What happened after that?"

"Then after that exclamation, each day, Javier told me, the grandmother had ten chances to guess the name of the woman. Every time the grandmother guessed, she failed to get the name right. When the year was almost done, the woman couldn't take the guessing game anymore and left Javier, his father, and the grandmother, not wanting to have anything to do with them again. Despite of that, Javier's father decided that his mother's guessing name should be a family tradition. Been like that ever since I could remember. Crazy tradition."

"So that guessing game goes like this: If Javier finds a girl who he loves, he has to call the girl '_muchacha'_ and tries to guess the right name. Right?"

I nodded.

"And if Javier guesses the right name, he gets the girl, is that right?"

"Si. In other words, yes." I replied.

"How long have you known Beatrice?" Roger asked.

I rolled my eyes.

_Él está haciendo demasiadas preguntas! _I thought.

"Six months." I replied. "I cheated in the tradition."

"How?" Roger asked.

"Do you remember the day when you were framed?"

"I DO! HEE HEE!" Psycho exclaimed.

"I remember." Roger replied.

"What about the time but on the same day when you hid in _Señor_ Valiant's office and we began to look around there?" I asked.

"*Gasp* How did you-?"

"Beatrice told me but either I or Beatrice will explain that part later. Anyway, Beatrice's brother, Thomas, introduced himself and Beatrice to Boss, or Smarty, as some people will call him. Since I heard her name, the tradition was ruined. But that didn't bother me. I decided to cheat by doing two things. _Uno, _or one, pretend that I didn't know Beatrice's name. And _dos, _two, cut down the time limit by six months."

"Have you called Beatrice by her name yet?"

"Not yet but I will. I just want to surprise her."

"Surprise Pretty Girly! HEE HEE HEE!" Psycho exclaimed.

"And why does Psycho call Beatrice 'Pretty Girly'?" Roger asked.

"If Psycho likes something or someone, as if he was treating that certain thing or person like a play thing, he calls it 'pretty'." I replied.

"But what if-?"

I didn't have to think twice about that because I had a feeling that Roger was going to ask that hard-to-explain question.

"That's a completely different story." I immediately said, interrupting Roger.

…..

**Beatrice:**

The shop at **Dubois's Snazzy Schmazzy Motors**, the name of Atticus's used car dealership, was messy, dirty, and pretty dusty. Car parts, both fixed and broken, were organized on hanging racks, counters, and cardboard boxes. In the middle of all the junk, there was a busted up and rusty sports car with dusty windows, a missing front door, and a torn tire. I couldn't tell if I was in a junk yard or a car shop after I walked in with Atticus (with a really big brown hat on his head), Wyatt, and Wheezy.

Well, this is what happened before I came to the car dealership:

After putting on my glasses, black underarmor pants, gray sweatpants, a blue T-shirt (every article of clothing, except for my glasses, is four sizes too big), and black tennis shoes, I sat down on my bed with Charles Dickens' _Great Expectations _in my hand.

I was about to read it but Mom interrupted me and said that while she's going out to try out another bingo lounge with a couple of her friends, I was going to the used car dealership with Atticus and Wyatt.

I didn't want to go because I don't want to be viewed as a crook or the person who comes up with the crazy prices but Mom insisted that I shouldn't spend all of my time reading books.

Naturally, for wanting Mom to SHUT THE HECK UP, I, along with Wheezy, went with Atticus and Wyatt to the used car dealership.

And after a ten minute drive—

"Beatrice!" Atticus exclaimed. "Pay attention to me when I want to talk to you! What I said to you is help me and Wyatt glue on this front bumper on the car."

Then, Atticus turned to Wyatt and handed him a container of…SUPER SUPER Glue and two paintbrushes. I watched Wyatt and Atticus "paint" the glue on the inside of the front bumper.

"We're supposed to weld these sorts of things, Wyatt." Atticus said. "But keep in mind that welding takes time, money, and equipment. Use super super glue instead."

When the "painting" was done, I grabbed one end of the bumper while Wyatt grabbed the other. We pressed it on the front of the car and it got stuck on really good, although I had a ton of bad thoughts about using the super glue.

"Isn't the bumper going to fall off?" Wyatt asked with a hint of worry in his voice.

"Definitely!" Atticus replied.

"That's dangerous!" I said.

"Not to me."

Then, Atticus grabbed a plastic funnel and a tin can full of…sawdust.

"Transmission lesson." Atticus said as he inserted one end of the funnel in the engine. "Despite of what the so-called experts say about sawdust, it actually comes in great use."

Atticus began to add several handfuls of sawdust in the funnel and engine.

"The sawdust quiets the gears and it lets the motor run as sweet as a nut." He said and chuckled. "For only a couple of miles."  
I've had enough with this! This is just plain wrong!

"Atticus, that's cheating and you're a crook!" I exclaimed. "That's illegal!"

Atticus and Wyatt look at me with angry looks on their faces.

"Do you have a job?" Atticus asked. "Do you make money?"

"No but don't people need good cars?" I asked.

Then, Atticus sighed in frustration.

"Okay, listen to me, you wise-acre!" He exclaimed. "I'm big, you're small, I'm right, and you're wrong! There's nothing that you can do about it! So shut your mouth and just watch me and Wyatt! You can't learn how to be like us if you're thinking or reading too much!"

After that, Wyatt and Atticus went back to 'fixing' the car…not before putting his hat on his tool box and next to the super glue.

I looked at the glue and hat.

A temptation begins to grow inside me.

I wanted to spread just…two…maybe three thick strips of glue inside the hat and watch Atticus become too embarrassed to show his face in the public.

Oh, the temptation is so strong and it isn't easy for me resist it.


	18. Chapter 18: Flying Food and Messes

**Chapter Eighteen**

**(Although I posted the seventeenth chapter this morning, I wanted to tell y'all that a few nights ago, before I went to sleep, I accidentally upload the wrong chapter. It wasn't until this morning when I realized my mistake.**

**Thank goodness that I fixed my error.**

**Sooo…**

**Here is a fun fact:**

**For all you **_**Who Framed Roger Rabbit **_**fans, this fun fact is for y'all! **

**Charles Fleischer, the actor who played Roger Rabbit, did a total of four voices in the movie. He played Roger Rabbit (as mentioned just a second ago), Greasy, Psycho, and Benny the Cab. **

**In the previous chapter, Roger, Greasy, and Psycho were having a very random conversation together. If this story were a movie, then Charles Fleischer would be having a conversation with himself. XD**

**I'm pretty sure that Charles Fleischer isn't the only voice actor/actor who had several roles and had a 'conversation' with themselves.**

***I chuckle mischievously***

**So here you are! Here's another chapter!  
**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: I WANT SUMMER TO COME RIGHT **_**NOW!**_**)**

**Wheezy:**

Although I'm not always the person…or weasel who's very good at expressing my feelings, I have to say that the way that the way that…Atticus was talking to Beatrice was really wrong and sick. Even though I've had my experience with bad-mouthing people (women, too) and getting used to the consequences, watching Beatrice getting bad-mouthed by an older man is just wrong.

Because of Cressida, I am slowly beginning to think that bad-mouthing girls is just not my kind of thing anymore. It's going to take more time but…yeah.

What the heck am I saying?

As I smoked on my five burning cigarettes, I watched Atticus…and…Wyatt…'fix' a broken car with cheap and useless pieces of equipment and things that I would see in one of those cabinets under sinks.

The cloud of smoke that I just blew out transformed into a skull with angry eyes, the shape that I used to blow at Beatrice before I believed her about Judge Doom getting rid of me and the rest of the Toon Patrol. This time, I wasn't blowing the angry skull at Beatrice. I was blowing that cloud of smoke at Atticus and Wyatt.

I looked at Beatrice.

She was staring at the container of super glue and Atticus's hat.

"You're staring at the glue and hat." I said to Beatrice.

"Yep." She said. "Very obvious."

"If you really want to put the glue in the hat, then go ahead and do it. I'm not going to stop you."

Beatrice sighed.

"Tempting as it sounds; I don't think that adding glue in Atticus's hat sounds like a great idea." She said.

"Beatrice, who are you talking to?" Wyatt asked.

…..

**Beatrice:**

I was just about to answer when a car horn honked really loudly and I heard my mom exclaiming,

"I WON! I WON! I WON!"

Oh, great. She won. I don't care. I probably don't want to know.

"ATTICUS!" Mom exclaimed as she was driving her white low rider up to the front of the shop. "I'VE HIT THE DOUBLE BINGO!"

With excitement, Atticus and Wyatt dropped the tools that were needed to fix the broken car and ran over to Mom and her low rider.

"Come on, everyone! " Mom exclaimed with a smile. "I'm taking y'all to **The Whelk Café**!"

**The Whelk Café **is a very fancy Texas-themed restaurant that is located almost in the center of the Brazoria Shopping Center. I've been to the café six times (twice with my dad and four times with my ex-boyfriends) and I have to say that the food, music, theme, and decorations are very good and exceptional. My previous experiences with my dad were really good but I have a feeling that going to **The Whelk Café **with Atticus, Wyatt, and Mom will be anything but pleasant.

"Let me see the money!" Atticus said to Mom.

"Never mind." Mom replied.

I looked at Wheezy.

"Do you want to tag along or are you planning on going back to Toon Town?" I asked.

Wheezy exhaled a cloud of smoke and replied,

"I'm heading back to Toon Town."

I nodded.

"All right. See you some other time." I said.

"Come on, Beatrice!" Wyatt exclaimed.

I sighed and began to walk towards my mom's car.

"Beatrice?" Wheezy asked.

I looked at him.

"If Atticus, Wyatt, and your mother don't accept your way of life, stand firm in what you believe is right." Wheezy said.

I nodded my head, as if I were saying 'Okay'.

"Hurry up!" Mom exclaimed at me, as I made my way to the car. "I'm driving y'all to the house and we're all going to dress in more decent clothes."

After I climbed into the car, Mom shifted the gears and drove away…but had to go back to the shop after Atticus exclaimed that he forgot his hat.

I jumped out of the car and ran back into the shop.

The hat was still on the tool box and I went right ahead and grabbed it. I ran back to my mom's car and hopped back in.

When I handed Atticus his hat, he snatched it out of my hands and slammed his hat on his head.

The time was really strange.

I've only been at the car shop for forty-five minutes and Mom is already rubbing in the prize.

First, crazy things happen after eight-thirty this morning, then things got rocky around nine-fifteen, and around ten-twenty…well…I'm already beginning to have a feeling that things are going back to being crazy.

…

**Greasy:**

Psycho, Roger, and I made it to Beatrice's world by the time it was a little after ten. We were walking down another street and I really would like to take the bus to Beatrice's house.

Roger talked too much while we were still in Toon Town and he finally stopped in Beatrice's world when I told why…I found him…annoying and why I don't find him…funny.

But that's not really important now. What's important now is checking on Beatrice and see if she's doing all right. I know that Wheezy…kind of…volunteered to do that for me and Psycho while we were having a meeting with Yen Sid but it doesn't hurt to check again.

"I'm guessing you and Ps-…Ps-…" Roger began and struggled on pronouncing Psycho's name.

_Él nunca deja de hablar! _I thought. _Cuando Roger va a detener?!_

"PSYCHO." Psycho said.

"Yes, Psycho. What I was trying to say is…I'm guessing you and Psycho come here a lot, right?"

I nodded.

"Psycho and I come here a lot, yeah." I said. "We would walk down this street and arrive at Beatrice's house to make sure if she's doing all right."

"What do you mean by the last part of your sentence?" Roger asked.

Just as I was about to answer, a shot rang out and I heard someone running.

"What was that?!" Roger exclaimed with his ears standing up straight and stiff.

"It sounded like someone just used a gun." I said.

Then, I noticed that Psycho was gone.

"Where did Psycho go?!" I exclaimed.

"After that loud noise, he took off running." Roger replied. "Psycho was running so fast that I didn't see where he went. P-b-b-lease don't be mad at me, Greasy. Sometimes I-"

I didn't have time to let Roger apologize to me. I mean, this is really serious. The last time Psycho ran away after getting startled by something, he almost got himself back in the asylum in Hollywood. Roger and I better find Psycho before he gets himself in _grandes problemas._

"Come on, Roger! We need to find Psycho before ten o'clock tonight!" I exclaimed and ran.

"But where do we start looking?!" Roger asked.

…

**Beatrice:**

After I got dressed in blue jeans, black tank top, black-blue-and-white plaid shirt, and black white Converse All-Star shoes, Mom (wearing a pink cocktail dress), Wyatt (wearing a black suit that had a lingering bacon and scrambled egg smell), Atticus (who was still wearing his stupid orange, yellow, and red suit), and I arrived at **The Whelk Café.**

_Okay, _I thought as I walked with Atticus, Wyatt, and Mom, _just try not to be a part of any of Atticus and Mom's conversations. Don't say a word. Try to stay calm._

Then, as soon as Atticus, Wyatt, Mom, and I walked inside, Mom said to Atticus,

"Honey, take your hat off."

As we followed the host, Atticus grabbed the rim of his hat. I watched him try to pull his hat off but strangely, it didn't come off.

"I can't." Atticus said to Mom.

"This is a nice place." Mom replied as Wyatt and I sat down on the chairs of our table. "You can't wear a hat inside."

Atticus grabbed the rim of his hat with both of his hands and tried to pull the hat off his head again.

"I can't take it off. It's stuck!" Atticus said to Mom while trying to keep his voice in a whisper.

I heard a couple of the customers say, "Shh."

I watch Mom set her purse down on her chair and she gets in front of Atticus.

"Atticus, nobody cares what your hair looks like." Mom said. "Here, let me help."

Then, Mom grabbed the rim of Atticus's hat with both of her hands and tries to pull it off. Unfortunately, the hat stayed right where it was…like someone had added…super glue…inside…the hat.

_That's weird. _I thought. _I resisted the temptation of putting super glue inside Atticus's hat and yet…and yet, it's stuck._

"What's with this hat?" Mom exclaimed in a voice above a whisper.

As Mom struggles to pull the hat off, all of the other customers, including the host, hostess, waiters, and waitresses, focus on the commotion that Mom and Atticus were making.

"OW, OW, OW, OW, OW, OW, OW!" Atticus yelled in pain.

"I think your head's swollen up really bad!" Mom exclaimed and tried to pull of the hat again.

I didn't even jump off my chair to help. I thought that it would be best that Mom and Atticus should try to handle their sticky situation on their own.

"OW, YOU'RE PULLING MY SKIN!" Atticus exclaimed.

"YOU'RE SUCH A BABY!" Mom said. "STOP IT! BE A MAN! BE A MAN! YOU'RE A MAN!"

"FIBERS ARE FUSED TO THE HEAD!"

I stifled a giggle.

"'FIBERS ARE FUSED'-?! What does that supposed to mean?!" Mom exclaimed.

Then, with a great big tug, Mom attempts to pull the hat off. Unfortunately, her hands slip off the rim and Mom tumbles back, hits the table, and does a backflip.

Atticus staggered back and landed on a table that two other ladies were sitting at and one of them pushes Atticus away from them…and their Texas Caesar salads. Atticus bumps into a waiter and the menus that were in the waiter's hands flew up in the air.

Finally, Atticus landed on the edge of a serving tray that had a fish dish, a giant pitcher of tea, baked zucchini with parmesan cheese, a blackberry cobbler, and a serving bowl full of steamed green beans, causing the tray to act like a catapult, launching everything on the tray to fly into the air with the menus.

As some customers covered their heads, one waiter catches three of falling menus. One menu landed on a fork and it flew into the air with the fish dish, green vegetables, and tea.

I grabbed my glass and reached forward to where the tea was about to land. Not including a tiny spill, the tea was filled up to the edge of my glass. The rest of the tea landed on Wyatt, his suit, and his hair.

Then, the fish, three baked zucchinis, and a handful of green beans landed perfectly on my plate.

The blackberry cobbler landed on Wyatt's head, covering him with sticky, fruity goodness.

Then, last but not least, the fork landed on the fish, which was pan-seared salmon, thus completing a perfect dish right in front of me.

Wyatt watches me with envy as I cut my salmon with my fork and take a bite.

"Mmm." I said with a smile.

…

**Greasy:**

I walked alone to the front door of Beatrice's house as I thought of maybe giving up on searching Psycho.

_Si_, I looked. I looked all over the town of Houston while Roger looked around the alleys. Eventually, Roger went back to Toon Town after telling me that he was going to look for Psycho there. I didn't think that it was a bad idea for two reasons. One, Psycho could hide somewhere in Toon Town and two; I didn't want to listen to Roger talking too much.

Anyway, I knocked on the front door and waited for Beatrice to answer.

Then, I heard a faint crash inside.

Not wanting to call Beatrice by her name yet, I said,

"_Muchacha, _are you okay?"

I waited for an answer.

Nothing.

I knocked again and after three seconds, there was still no reply.

Knowing that a crash and no reply meant trouble, I took out my switchblade and flipped it open.

Then, quietly, I opened the front door and walked in Beatrice's house.

After closing the door, I heard another noise.

Instead of a crash, it was a SPLAT.

Then, I heard,

"Uh oh. Killed an egg. *SLURP!*, *GULP!* Bye-bye, egg. HEE HEE!"

PSYCHO?!

As I closed my switchblade, I ran to where Psycho was making a mess and all those noises.

THE KITCHEN.

After bursting into the kitchen, I saw that Psycho had dropped some eggs and his straightjacket was stained with something that I couldn't identify.

"Psycho, what are you doing here?" I asked as he was reaching for a giant container of orange juice inside Beatrice's fridge.

Two small bottles of orange juice fell down as he took out the giant container.

"Safe from loud noise. Safe from loud noise." Psycho said and unscrewed the cap.

He brought the container up to his lips and began to chug down the orange liquid.

"Psycho, that's Beatrice's orange juice. Save some for her." I said and snatched the container out of his sleeve-covered hands.

I looked at the container for a brief second and thinking that Psycho had already put his mouth on it, I decided that Psycho should go ahead and finish off the orange juice.

"Go ahead and finish that up." I said and handed the container to Psycho. "Then, help me pick up the mess that you made."

After eight seconds, Psycho guzzled down the orange juice.

"All done." He said and tossed the container aside, as if it were a candy wrapper.

I ran to the bottle and picked it up.

"Get a washcloth and run it under some water. Then, wipe the cloth on the floor and dry it with another cloth." I said.

But instead of getting a washcloth, Psycho tucks his head, sleeves, arms, and feet into his straightjacket and begins to roll around in the mess. He was acting like a dog rolling around on a carpet and what Psycho was doing wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Then again, what he's doing is actually helping.

"Psycho, get the floor cleaned up real good." I said. "I don't want Beatrice's mother to get angry at her. Try to make it as clean as possible."

Then, I ran to the sink and clogged the drain with a rubber stopper. I squeezed a little bit of soap from a bottle and turned on the water.

As the sink was filling up and the bubbles were growing by the second, Psycho was slowly beginning to stop rolling around on the floor.

I took off my coat, rolled it up, and placed it on the counter. Then, I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and grabbed Psycho.

I bit my tongue to prevent myself from cursing after touching a wet and slimy Psycho and I began to carry him to the front porch.

A few seconds later, I walked on the front porch and held Psycho over two bushes that were growing in the ground of the front yard.

As if Psycho were a washcloth, I squeezed and wrung him out.

I carried Psycho back inside and after walking through the living room; I placed Psycho in the kitchen sink.

Psycho's head popped out from the bubbles as he began to scrub himself really hard and giggled with craziness.

"_Estamos haciendo un buen progreso aquí_." I said to Psycho. "_Mientras Beatrice, que el hombre, el otro chico, y el maligno madre están todavía en la ciudad, vamos a estar bien."_

Psycho's spiky hair was slicked down with the water and soap and his chin was dripping with water. He even began to smell like the soap.

Since I didn't know where Beatrice keeps the towels, I took off running at the fastest speed that a Toon could go to the Toon Patrol headquarters. A few seconds later, I came back to Beatrice's kitchen with four bathroom towels in my hands.

I put down three of the towels and unfolded one.

I gave Psycho the towel after he leaped out of the sink while he was dripping wet.

With amazing speed, Psycho dried himself off in less than twelve seconds.

As I bit my tongue again, I reached into the sink and pulled out the rubber stopper.

The water and bubbles began to go down the drain as Psycho was giving himself another round of drying himself with a towel.

I walked back to the sink and began to rinse it with soap and water as Psycho cupped his sleeve-covered hands under the faucet.

With his sleeve-covered hands full of water, Psycho dumped the water on the floor and dried up the floor with one of the folded towels.

I finished up on rinsing the sink and joined Psycho with drying the floor.

Psycho even began to whistle as he was drying the floor. The last thing that I needed was Psycho singing that catchy but irritating song from _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. _There's no way that he's going to make that _Whistle While You Work _song stuck in my head again.

Then, eventually, the kitchen floor looked like it had never been messed up or drenched with orange juice. It was sparkling clean.

"Job well done, Psycho." I said. "Beatrice will have to wait for a few more hours. Let's go take these towels back to the headquarters and wash them."

"We visit Pretty Girly tonight?" Psycho asked.

"Yes, we're going to see her TONIGHT."


	19. Chapter 19: TV Dinners, TV, and Books

**Chapter Nineteen**

**(Sorry it's taking me so long.**

**I've been so busy with many other things at school that I would too tired to write a chapter. **

**Now that it's spring break for me, I can write the chapters that y'all have been waiting for.**

**YAAAAY! :D**

**So here is a chapter that you have been waiting for.**

**Enjoy this chapter and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: No characters were harmed in the last chapter and no hats ( ;-) ) were harmed during the restaurant scene. Don't add glue in someone's hat, even if you think that someone deserves that, just don't do it. Don't do that at home. *I laugh a mischievous laugh*)**

***8:38:32 PM and counting…LATE AT NIGHT…In the Birchwood Living Room***

**Beatrice:**

"I WILL NOT BE THE FIGURE OF RIDICULE!" Atticus exclaimed as Mom was cutting his hat with a pair of scissors. "I want respect and I want it now!"

Before Atticus, Wyatt, Mom, and I settled in the living room, we pretty much spent the rest of the day shopping and spending most of the money that Mom won after she paid for my meal.

No, we were not shopping for clothes. We were grocery-shopping. We shopped for so many groceries that the fridge and pantry didn't have enough room to fit in all the groceries. All of the extra groceries, including refrigerated, unrefrigerated, and inedible items, were stored either in the storage closet, the other giant refrigerator in the garage, or the attic.

Since Atticus was being a big sissy to show his face in every public restaurant, he literally bought almost every kind of frozen TV breakfast, lunch, and dinner from three grocery stores, two Dollar Generals, and a convenience store with Mom's money so that he wouldn't have to go to another restaurant until Atticus will never be recognized as the guy who made a commotion in **The Whelk Café.**

Right now, I'm in the living room with Wyatt, Atticus, and Mom (they all have their TV dinners hot and ready to eat along with their own individual bags of chips). The news was playing on the TV and I was sitting on my dad's comfortable chair, reading _Moby Dick._ Every now and then, I would watch Mom trying to remove Atticus's hat with the pair of scissors. Right now, she's wearing a different outfit (a white poet shirt and denim shorts) because after what happened in **The Whelk Café, **Mom changed into another outfit and claimed that she didn't want to remember anything that happened a few hours ago.

"I still don't see how you glued your hat on, Atticus." Mom said and walked behind him. "I mean, I know you say that you didn't but OBVIOUSLY, you did."

Atticus groaned.

"I _DID NOT _glue my hat to my head!" He said. "The hat _shrunk, _the fibers _fused_ to my hair!"

Despite of how much I don't like Atticus, what he said was probably the funniest thing that I've heard from him.

I stifled a giggle as the hat finally loosened up.

With a swift tug, Mom pulled off Atticus's hat. Bits of fabric from the hat were stuck on to his head.

Mom and Wyatt began to giggle and chuckle as Atticus grabbed a hand mirror and looked at himself.

Not pleased with the after-effects, Atticus slams the mirror on the carpet floor in anger. That action made Mom and Wyatt stop giggling and chuckling.

"FROM NOW ON," Atticus exclaimed, "THIS FAMILY DOES EXACTLY WHAT I SAY…_WHEN EXACTLY WHEN I SAY IT!"_

Mom handed Atticus his hat. He held it for brief second and then, he tossed the hat aside.

After grabbing his TV dinner (steak, peas, and mashed potatoes), his fork, and knife, Atticus declared,

"And right now, WE ARE EATING DINNER…AND WATCHING TV."

Then, Mom turned off almost all the lights in the living room (I left the light of my lamp on) and changed the channel on the TV. The _KBTX _news channel was switched to _Wheel of Fortune. _I love that show because I love word puzzles but I hate it when I'm watching it with Mom (she's into the money than guessing the answer). I don't think that I'm going to watch the TV show right now. I'm too reeled in to _Moby Dick._

As the sounds of the dinging and the applause on the TV slowly began to fade, I suddenly find myself in a world of sounds as my eyes move left and right as I read the words of the book I'm reading. I hear ocean waves splashing on the surface of the whaling ship, a man shouting orders, more men running toward the bow of the ship, and the whooshing sound of the harpoon getting thrown.

In fact, all of those sounds were sounding so clear that I felt like I was in _Moby Dick. _My imagination is getting really strong. The sounds so clear and I'm beginning to smell the salty air, the ocean, and fish.

All of the sounds and smells immediately began to fade away as a shadow covered seventy-five percent of the left page of my book.

My eyes followed to where the shadow was coming from and I accidentally bit my cheeks when I saw that it was Atticus who was casting his shadow on my book. He didn't look very happy. He was giving me the Terminator glare, the same look that Mom would give me if I did something wrong.

Remaining calm, I said to Atticus,

"What's up, doc?"

With a frown still on his face, Atticus asked me,

"Are you in this family?"

I just stared at him.

"HELLO?!" Atticus exclaimed. "ARE…YOU…IN…THIS FAMILY? WHERE'S YOUR DINNER?!"

Then, Atticus switches off my lamp in anger.

"DINNER TIME IS FAMILY TIME!" Atticus exclaimed angrily. "FAMILY TIME DOESN'T INVOLVE READING! WHAT IS THAT TRASH YOU'RE READING?!"

_Don't call a good book 'trash'. _I thought. _It's an insult to me and the amazing works of literature._

"It's not trash, Atticus." I calmly replied. "It's lovely and a classic. It's called _Moby Dick _and it's by Herman Melville."

Atticus's eyes blinked twice in surprise and grew to the size of sugar plums.

"_MOBY _WHAT?!" He exclaimed.

Suddenly, Atticus snatched the book out of my hands and began to flip through the pages.

After barely even looking at any of the words, Atticus exclaimed,

"I'M FED UP WITH YOU AND YOUR READING! YOU'RE A BIRCHWOOD GIRL AND YOU NEED TO START ACTING LIKE YOUR MOTHER! A GIRL DOESN'T GET FRIENDS BY READING TRASH LIKE THIS!"

Atticus grabbed a page and held it with his right thumb and right index finger. I heard a tiny tearing sound from where he was holding the page.

"DON'T YOU DARE RIP IT UP." I said. "That book belongs to me! IF YOU RIP THAT BOOK, YOU'RE GOING TO WISH THAT YOU HAVEN'T MET MY MOTHER."

With his left hand, Atticus grabbed the left side of my book and began to tear the pages out with his other hand.

I gasped in horror, panted in terror, and my eyes began to tear up when I saw that my favorite book was being ripped to shreds. It was almost living in the world of Ray Bradbury's _Fahrenheit 451._

When half of the pages of my book were torn out, Atticus threw the book down and grabbed my head. He makes me look at the TV screen with his strong grip.

"Sit up and watch TV!" Atticus said.

I watched the contestants on the TV spinning the wheel and applauding for no good reason. I frowned in frustration and extreme anger as I heard the dinging on the TV and Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt laughing out loud.

As I frowned at what Atticus said, I noticed how the sounds that I'm hearing are growing incredibly loud and I clenched my jaw in anger. Then, a feeling, a strange but pleasing feeling, began to grown inside of me, despite of how angry I am.

I felt most of the strange feeling in my eyes and some in my head and the feeling felt like electricity. It was brewing inside me and my mind immediately flashes a picture of a cartoon drawing of a volcano with a humongous cork inside the crater, giving me the description of either a great power or pressure building up inside and trying to find a way to be released.

My hands began to warm up as I began to imagine sticks of dynamite blowing up and imploding buildings falling down when the anger inside me is growing bigger and bigger by the second. The warm feeling goes from an average 98.6 warm to a scorching potbelly stove heat.

Then, my heart began to pound at an extremely fast pace and the pounding was so loud that I heard it.

My eyes began to burn and the electrical feeling in my eyes start to emit loud zapping noises as the pressure or power was building in me.

All of the sudden, sparks began to fly, some glass exploded into bits, a humming noise was briefly heard, and the electricity from the TV made a buzzing noise. Smoke was emerging from the TV as Mom screamed in surprise and Atticus's hands flew off my head.

The scorching hot feeling faded and goose bumps ran up and down on my legs, arms, back, and neck. The strange feeling disappeared after I got the goose bumps.

"I didn't do it." I said.

"Of course you didn't." Atticus replied as he turned on the lamp.

After Mom got up from her chair and turned on the living room lights, she, Atticus, and Wyatt walked up to the TV and tried to figure out what the problem was that made the TV blow up.

I didn't join them and I got up from Dad's comfortable chair. I picked up my torn book and walked to the kitchen. After throwing the book away in the trash can, I walked to the pantry and looked for a can of green beans.

_Was the exploding TV magic or coincidence? _I thought as I made my way to a can of green beans.

As I thought about the exploding TV and the strange feeling that I felt, I grabbed the canned green beans and walked out of the pantry.

After using a manual-operated can opener and draining the liquid in the can, I grabbed a fork and headed to my room with a can of green beans and a fork in my hand.

I locked my bedroom door after walking in and I began to munch on my green beans.

Then, something hits me after eating four bites of my green beans.

Another part of the Magic Mirror just came true:

"Explosions go boom."

But it was only one explosion.

How many more explosions will there be later in the future? Two…three…what about four?

When will the-?

Thunder begins to rumble outside and someone knocks on my window.

I turned to the window and I saw that Greasy and Psycho were standing outside.

Almost immediately, I put my green beans on my nightstand and walked to the window. I unlocked it and opened it up.

"What's up, y'all?" I asked Greasy and Psycho as they entered my room.

I closed and locked the window just before the storm was at the point of getting really bad.

"We came to see you." Greasy said. "Well, we were supposed to come here in the afternoon hours but Psycho and I got stuck in a couple of crazy events."

Then, Psycho begins to sniff the air.

"Smoke. I smell smoke." He said.

"What happened while Psycho and I were trying to get to you?" Greasy asked me.

"Oh, boy. You are not going to believe this but…I had to experience a ton of crazy events." I replied.

"What were they?"

"It's kind of long story but…if y'all like a good story, I'll tell y'all anyway."

"Tell us, Pretty Girly." Psycho said.

I took a deep breath and grabbed my can of green beans.

"This is what happened after Greasy and Stupid had to go see Yen Sid." I began.


	20. Chapter 20: James, Spiker and Sponge

**Chapter Twenty:**

**(Okay, y'all.**

**Here is a chapter with Tommy in it.**

**I probably might write two, three, maybe five chapters with Tommy in them and after/during those chapters, I will write some chapters/excerpts with Beatrice written in them as I continue this story.**

**It's not because I don't like writing 'Tommy' chapters. It's because I've noticed that the movie version of **_**James and the Giant Peach **_**goes at a little bit of a quicker pace than **_**Matilda**_**. I'm going to try the best that I can to slow down that pace but try to stick to the original plot of the original movie or book.**

**So…**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1**

**PS: Here is a link to a song that's going to be used in the next chapter:**

** watch?v=lY79wyfOKSo **

_**My Name is James **_**from **_**James and the Giant Peach.**_

**Sorry if it's a little sad.)**

**Tommy:**

I woke up to the sound of James catching his breath.

My guess is he was probably having a nightmare.

I sat up from the floor that I was sleeping on and looked at James, who was pressing a traveling brochure against his chest.

"Are you all right, James?" I whispered.

"I've a bad dream, Tommy." He replied. "I've dreamt of my parents. I was celebrating my birthday with my mum and dad and we began to talk about going to New York City. Then, the sky grew dark and I saw an angry rhinoceros. My parents disappeared and I didn't see where they went after the rhino appeared."

Just as I was about to say something, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps stomping their way towards me and James.

Immediately, James hid the brochure under his pillow as soon as the door of our bedroom swung open. Two women, known as 'Aunt Spiker' and 'Aunt Sponge' burst into the bedroom with their night robes (Sponge was wearing a robe in pink while Spiker wore a robe in green), angry looks, and purple rags around their heads.

"GET UP, YOU LAZY LITTLE BUGS!" Sponge exclaimed.

"You two have WASTED FOUR MINUTES OF DAYLIGHT!" Spiker exclaimed.

Yes, Spiker and Sponge are probably two of the cruelest people I'm beginning to know.

"Just look at them, Sponge, lollygagging in dream land…" Spiker scoffed, laughed, and exclaimed. "…when there's so much work do!"

"WEEDS TO PULL!" Sponge exclaimed. "WOOD TO CHOP!"

"WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK!" Spiker and Sponge shouted in unison.

I think that it's time for me to explain everything.

First of all, I had a good flight to England. Although England is nothing like Texas, it looked really beautiful. The town that I had to stay in was…it was…I'm sorry…I can't remember…I'll come back to that some other time…really beautiful and the sceneries were really breath-taking. I even took some pictures with my phone so that I'll show Beatrice once I fly back to Texas.

The food in England was great but it was a little difficult for me to understand the currency when it came to buying the food and a souvenir. I caught on a little bit after taking lessons from an experienced tourist from Nebraska.

Then, after a couple of days, I decided to have a look around the town and a village. Since I was trying to be careful with the amount of money that I've brought with me, I decided to walk (with my money hidden in my shoes) instead of going with a group, riding a bike, or going on a bus full of tourists.

At first, things were running smoothly but slowly, strangeness came to me and my surroundings began to change. When I wondered around in the village, I noticed that the people who live in the village wore clothes from another time, like around the late thirties, early forties, or early fifties. I stood out a lot because I was still wearing modern clothes.

Nobody really asked me where I came from…probably because they see strangers all of the time…I don't know...but despite of that, I still stood out from everyone.

Trouble almost officially began when I wandered around a house on top of a lonely hill around three o'clock in the afternoon. In fact, the hill was so high that the house was really far away from the village, kind of making it look like you're seeing the village and the ocean from the view of a flying bird.

I saw a little boy, probably seven or eight years old, washing and drying dishes with a bucket full of soapy water and a rag hanging off the side of it.

The little boy saw me and he looked really worried.

"You better get away from here." He said with worry in his voice. "If my aunts see you talking to me, then we'll be in big trouble."

Just as I was about to ask the boy if he was all right, trouble officially began when two women, a skinny one and a…corpulent one, slammed open the front door of the house and came after the boy and me.

The aunts were so mean to the boy and they thought that I was one of those people who have the right to transfer a child abuse victim to another home. I told the aunts that I wasn't and they immediately concluded that I'm an American tourist (because they noticed my accent) who lost my parents because of 'a rhinoceros gobbled them up in thirty-five seconds flat'.

I was about to object that but the aunts made it official that I was going to work for them with the boy until the day we die.

After the aunts left me and the boy to work, the boy introduced himself to me, telling me that his name was James and his aunts were named Spiker and Sponge (After hearing that, I realized that I've been transported into the world of a movie that was off of one of Roald Dahl's most famous books, _James and the Giant Peach._).

Spiker was the skinny aunt. In fact, she was so skinny that her cheekbones were poking out of her cheeks and I bet the buzzards take one good look at her and fly away, thinking that she doesn't look like the kind of thing to have their bones picked at. It seems that Spiker is a little bit smarter than Sponge, who is probably the opposite of her sister.

Sponge was the corpulent aunt. In fact, she is so round that if she took one step down a steep hill, she would roll down like a ball. Sponge isn't the brightest aunt and she is probably the most self-centered person that I've ever met.

Before I came, James told me, Spiker and Sponge took him in after his parents had died (which would kind of explain why Spiker and Sponge talked about an angry rhino eating his parents up) would always make him do chores while they 'lazed about'. Also, if James did something wrong or tries to not do anything, Spiker and Sponge would either beat him or call him names.

After hearing what James told me, I knew that I was going to face a similar experience that Beatrice had to live through for some time before and until the present (Seriously, is she doing all right?). Although I've been a witness in Beatrice's life, I was the victim in triple very seldom times. I would have to face physical and verbal abuse, being put down, and even face the consequence of having my confidence being at a low level.

Despite of the last thought, I'm going to try to keep my hopes up.

Then after getting adjusted to the home of the horrible aunts and a kind little boy named James, I had to help James doing 'garden work' on a dead tree, pick up of litter, clean the aunts' old car, dust the house, wash clothes, paint furniture made from metal, and chop wood (In fact, we have been doing the same chores for a couple of days.).

As I am now helping James chop the wood while Spiker and Sponge are dressed in lace cover-ups, swimsuits, red wigs (they don't have a lot of hair on their heads), sunglasses, white socks and shoes, and sunhats (and drinking lemonade) I caught a butterfly with light blue wings flying around. It began to fly towards a table that was placed in between Spiker and Sponge.

My smile dropped to a look of terror after Spiker killed the butterfly with an old fly-swatter.

"Ew." Spiker said as James and I were finishing up our last bit of chopping wood. "Wouldn't want one of those resting in your knickers."

"Oh, I look and smell," Sponge declared proudly. "I do declare, as lovely as a rose, just FEAST your eyes on my face."

I rolled my eyes at Sponge's declaration. I hate it when mean people do that.

"Observe my shapely nose." Sponge continued. "Behold my heavenly silky locks. And if I take off both my socks…"

Wait a second. Is Sponge speaking in rhyme? I mean, I know that Roald Dahl has a tendency to write rhymes in his books but…I don't remember Sponge speaking in rhymes in the movie.

"…you'll see my dainty toes." Sponge concluded and giggled.

"But don't forget, my dearest Sponge," Spiker began, "how much your TUMMY shows!"

Then, Spiker began to chuckle as Sponge began to stammer indistinctively.

I sat down on a protruding rock next to James.

In his hands was the brochure that he hid under his pillow when we woke up. Since I didn't get a good look at the brochure the first time, I got a better view of it after I sat down next to James.

"**NEW YORK**" was titled on the front and inside was a map with the United States and some parts of Europe and Africa drawn in it.

"Planning to travel in New York?" I asked James.

He nodded.

"My mum, dad, and I were about to go to New York City and go on the top of the Empire State Building." James lamented. "I really want to get away from here and my aunts."

Oh, man. James really does want to go to New York City. I can hear it in his voice. But James needs encouragement instead of sadness.

"I've been to New York City." I said to James.

He looked at me.

"You have?" He asked.

It's actually true. I've been to New York City.

"Yeah. It's really beautiful." I replied. "When it's night time, the city turns on so many lights that it looks like daytime during the night time hours."

"Whoa." James said in awe.

"And there's this giant monument on an island that's close to New York called the Statue of Liberty." I continued. "It's very well known for its symbol of freedom and being a welcome sign to those who come from many different parts of the world. Also, when a lot of people from certain countries began to move to the United States, they believed that New York was the state of dreams coming true."

James smiled and looked ahead at where the sun was over the ocean and the ocean was touching the land.

"Tommy, what's a symbol?" James asked after a brief second of pausing.

"Well, a symbol is-" I began.

"YOU LAZY BUGS!" Sponge exclaimed angrily.

James immediately hid the brochure behind his back and we looked at an angry Sponge.

"WHO TOLD YOU TWO TO STOP WORKING?!" Sponge exclaimed.

"Tommy and I finished the wood." James replied nervously.

Then, Spiker got right behind James and snatched the brochure out of his hands.

"A TRAVEL BOOK?!" Spiker exclaimed after looking at the brochure for a brief second. "How DARE you two even dream of leaving?!"

"This…" Sponge began after getting too close to my face. "…is the only home that you two will ever have."

"Nobody is going to tolerate worthless little nothings like you two." Spiker said and handed Sponge the brochure.

After Sponge grabbed the brochure, she began to flip it over and over while looking at the pictures inside of it.

"Where did you get this?" She asked. "Where?"

"My father gave it to me." James replied. "He said that we're to go there one day."

"It's a very nice place to go to." I also replied, sticking up for James.

Spiker and Sponge glowered at me and James.

"Stupid foolish men." Spiker said and pushed me and James on the ground.

"FOOLISH MEN, ALWAYS DREAMING." Sponge exclaimed as she and Spiker began to circle around me and James. "That's what got them killed!"

"And your mothers."

"Had their heads in the clouds instead of looking where they were going."

"Your parents never saw that rhino coming."

Sponge chuckled with ridicule.

"That rhino." She said.

"And the beast will also get you two," Spiker said and waved her finger at me and James, "if you don't behave."

"Now let's get these stupid dreams out of your heads!" Sponge exclaimed and began to rip up James's brochure into shreds.

"AND GET BACK TO WORK!" The two horrible aunts exclaimed in unison.

James and I simply watched the pieces of the torn up brochure fly away with the leaves, tiny rocks, sticks, tiny dirt clods, and bits of debris in the blowing breeze.


	21. Chapter 21: Spiders and Sicknesses

**Chapter Twenty One**

**(Here is the link to the song that I've mentioned in the previous chapter:**

** watch?v=lY79wyfOKSo**

**Enjoy the story and life as it goes!**

**-imaginarytoon1)**

**Tommy:**

By the time the sun was setting, James and I were just finishing up on our final chore, chopping more wood and stacking the logs, and even putting away our tools that were needed.

"Well, we're done with our chores." I said after putting away the last tool.

"For now." James said. "I'm starving. Come on, Tommy. Let's go inside in the house."

As James and I walked to the front part of the house, I heard the faint sounds of a singing man on the radio and the aunts having a conversation.

"Careful, Spongy." Spiker giggled. "Wouldn't want to ruin that girlish figure."

"Oh, shut up." Sponge said as James and I entered the house.

There were lit candles sitting on a windowsill and Spiker and Sponge, who were dressed in different outfits, were sitting at a table with some delicious food and two glasses full of an olive oil-colored wine.

My mouth began to water at the sight of the food. I haven't eaten in a couple of days.

"Yes?" Spiker asked me and James with a look of irritation.

"Tommy and I have finished all of the chores." James said as he was walking towards her.

Sponge pushed James away with her arm while stuffing her face full of food.

"What a coincidence!" She said. "We finished all the dinner."

I frowned at Sponge.

Spiker chuckled.

"Oh, Sponge, you're such a tease." She said and looked at us with a fake smile. "There's something special waiting for you two boys…IN THE OVEN."

My eyes widened and I followed James to a medium box-sized oven.

_Please let there be some fried chicken legs. _I thought.

I was smiling with anticipation when James opened the oven.

But instead of chicken legs, there was a plate of…red fish heads.

That's disgusting.

"Oh, do let me guess." Sponge said out loud. "They're not good enough for them."

"What do you boys think this is?" Spiker snapped. "Buckingham Palace?!"

Then, James looked down to his left, where a bag of potato chips was lying perfectly still in the garbage can.

"Get out of our sight!" Sponge exclaimed, causing James to shut the door.

Immediately, James grabbed the bag and hid it behind his back as he and I made our way to the staircase that led us to our room.

"GO ON!" Sponge exclaimed again. "GO ON!"

Then, James and I ran upstairs.

After entering our room, James began to look inside the bag to see if there were any chips left.

James sat down and tilted the bag.

At least fix chips slid down and landed on his hand. I didn't think that it was enough to feed the both of us.

"Here, Tommy." James said. "Have a couple of these."

I shook my head no, despite of not having to eat in a couple of days.

"No, James." I said. "You can have them."

"All of them?" James asked.

I nodded.

At first, James was very hesitant about what I've said but he went right on ahead and ate the chips.

Then, James tore open the bag and began to lick the inside of it, thinking that there still might be more crumbs left.

All of the sudden, James stopped licking the bag and he frowned a small frown after seeing something.

"Everything all right, James?" I asked.

Not hearing me, James walked up to the window and climbed up on a small chair.

He looked up at the top of the window as I walked towards him.

"Hello there." James said. "Where did you come from?"

I watched him bring his right hand up and a small black and white spider climbed down to his hand…probably without thinking about biting James.

"You probably shouldn't build your web up here on the window." James said to the spider. "Spiker and Sponge might see you and they HATE spiders."

_They hate butterflies, too. _I thought. _Practically, most of the bugs that live here are gone because of Spiker and Sponge. I'm going to let this spider live._

James stepped off the chair and placed his hands on it, allowing the spider to crawl around.

"Tommy and I will be your friend." James said to the spider as I sat down next to the chair, having a good view of the eight-legged arachnid.

Then, slow music begins to play.

_Why is there music playing? _I thought. _It's been a long time since I've watched the movie version of _James and the Giant Peach _and I hardly remember the names or the lyrics of the songs._

"_My name is James, _

_That's what mother called me_." James sang softly.

_And James is kind of bursting out into song. _I thought as James placed the torn potato chip bag in front of him. _I think that I'm going to let that slide…for now._

"_My name is James, _

_So it's always been_."

James gets down on his knees and picks up a loose floorboard. He takes out a tin box from the inside of the hollow space under the floorboard. Then, James takes off the lid and takes out a small metal container from the box.

After opening the container, a few crayons slid out and landed on the floor.

"_Sometimes I'll forget,_

_When I'm lonely or afraid,_

_So I'll go inside my head,_

_And look for James_." James sang as he began to scribble something on the bag.

Then, James takes out a small object out of the box and places it on the chair. It was a…birthday candle with a book-reading boy riding on the back of a grasshopper.

"Here's something that I've never shown anyone." James said.

As the spider crawled towards the candle, James went back to scribbling something on the bag.

I crawled up to James and the bag and watched James draw a picture of…buildings.

"_There's a city that I dreamed of very far from here. _

_Very, very far away from here,_

_Very far away_." James sang as he drew another picture.

This time, the other picture was me and James with wings on our backs and the drawing of James had the spider in his hands.

"There are people in the city and they're kind to me.

But it's very, very far away, you know,

Very far." James sang as he began to stop drawing of New York City (?) and began to fold the bag into some odd shapes.

Then, James stood up.

"_They'll say, _

'_James, James, James, how are ya? _

_Isn't it a lovely day_?'" James sang and blew in to the bag, causing it to expand into a rectangular prism with round edges and a hole.

"'_James, James, James, _

_We're so glad you came here, _

_Where we are from so very, very, very far_!'" James said as he began to tie some string on to the candle and the bag while I cautiously brought the spider back to its web.

Then, James lit a match and began to burn the wick of the candle with the flame.

He carefully carries his little 'hot air balloon' as I opened up the window.

"_My name is James, _

_James, _

_James_." James sang and held his 'balloon' out of the window.

As I heard the music still playing its possible final notes, James and I watch the glowing 'balloon' float away and eventually higher and higher into the night sky.

I looked at James.

"Don't worry, James." I said. "Things are going to get better."

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"I'm positive."

After a brief pause, I sighed.

"Well, we better go sleep, James." I said. "We have a long day tomorrow."

As I walked over the bed, James said, after a pause,

"Good night. Pleasant dreams."

"Pleasant dreams." I replied as James closed the window with a squeak and a CLICK.

…..

**Beatrice:**

You probably know me very well now.

You know me as the girl who is exceptionally smart, polite, kind, and tough.

I'm about to give you an easy 'true or false' statement about me.

**TRUE or FALSE**

I am the most perfect person in the world.

What's your answer?

True?

Sorry, that's wrong. Better luck next time.

The right answer was **FALSE**.

Okay, I better give you an explanation.

Usually, I'm a person who picks the right choices but very rarely, I do the wrong things and they come with consequences.

I am facing one of those rare times right now.

I am in the hospital and Greasy doesn't know it. Neither does Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt.

How did I end up in the hospital?

Five words: Green beans…in…a…can.

A couple hours after Greasy and Psycho left, I began to read F. Scott Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby_ while Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt began to discuss some things that I didn't catch.

Pretty much after an hour later, I ended _The Great Gatsby_ and began to move on to Nelle Harper Lee (or better known as 'Harper Lee')'s _To Kill a Mockingbird_. Everyone, except yours truly, fell asleep by the time I reached the fourteenth page of my book.

It wasn't until I was halfway done with _To Kill a Mockingbird_ when I had to run to the bathroom and…began to upchuck.

For me, it was literally the first time that I've upchucked. I mean, some crazy people told me what it was like and despite of feeling very disgusted, I know what it's like and how should I expect the feeling of…upchucking.

Long story short, right now, I'm on a hospital bed and I haven't…upchucked in the last…thirty minutes…and the doctor told me that if I feel better by morning while drinking plenty of fluids, then I can go home.

That confused me.

For a long time, I've read books, including a ton of thick medical books, and even learn things from how people would describe something, like how long that the disease or condition will last. But whenever I experience something like the stomach flu, symptoms and all, I would feel better two hours later.

Is it because I have an unnatural healing factor that some people see in comic books? Or does the T-324 have anything to do with this?

That's something that I should ask Yen Sid.

Yeah.

I should ask him.

Once I get back home, without trying to get caught by Mom, Atticus, or Wyatt, I'll somehow get in contact with Yen Sid and I'll ask him about the effects of T-324.

I just hope that Yen Sid is not so busy once it's morning time.


	22. Chapter 22: T-324, Peaches, and Tongues

**Chapter Twenty Two**

**Beatrice:**

Around the late hours at night, I finally managed to contact Yen Sid. I had to use the Magic Lamp, write my reason on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope, and stick it inside the lamp. Then, three minutes later, smoke leaked out of the spout. It slithered around me until I was completely covered with smoke and found myself in a room with stone walls. I was in Yen Sid's tower (Wait, is it really a tower? I forgot.).

After my small trip to the hospital, I arrived home before Mom, Atticus, and Wyatt woke up or even noticed that I was gone.

Yes, I felt better but I had to wait for a period of time because I wasn't sure if I was really feeling good or not.

So anyway, I stood where I was until I heard someone walk down…a staircase?

I turned around and I saw Yen Sid.

This was not the time to smile. I pinched my thumb with my index finger and displayed the most serious look on my face…but not so serious that I look angry.

"I'm sorry if I was interrupting anything, sir." I said. "I wanted to ask you something."

"About the T-324, is that correct?" Yen Sid asked.

"Yes, sir."

Yen Sid walked to a bookshelf and grabbed a small glass vial. Inside of it was a dark blue liquid that bubbled like a soda.

"The 'T' in T-324 stands for 'Toon'." Yen Sid explained. "It is used for Toons who either have been drawn properly or, very rarely, if a Toon has lost one of its traits during an accident."

"Traits like invulnerability or the ability to think about defying the laws of physics?" I asked.

"Correct. T-324 can also be used for helping a Toon recover after a terrible accident. Inside the T-324 are the things that make a Toon…a Toon, like endurance, incredible strength, super speed, a given quick reaction to things, having the ability to combine toon physics with human physics, and unusual flexibility."

I nodded my head.

"In my dad's journal, my dad talked about using T-324 on humans like me and Tommy. Were there any other humans who had T-324 injected into them?" I asked.

"Yes." Yen Sid replied. "Cressida had to have T-324 injected into her when she was five because she was halfway through a battle with what humans call 'cancer'. You and Tommy had to have T-324 injected into you two because you were born a little early and were beginning to suffer from a lot of injuries after your mom got hit by a bus. You and Tommy almost died but thanks to the quick acting of the T-324, your lives were saved. Despite of that, the needle that was used for the T-324 left behind a bruise about the size of a pin on your arm."

I made a mental note of the details.

"How come the T-324 is rarely used in humans?" I asked.

"Because of some side effects that I've seen while I was testing the T-324 on a few humans and it kind of makes a human cheat death if they're at the point of dying." Yen Sid said. "I only used the T-324 on you, Cressida, and Tommy because you and Tommy were the links of your destiny while Cressida and the other Toons become your allies."

"And the side effects?"

"Unpredictable rounds of twitching, unintentional spasm-like reactions, and on-off rounds of daydreaming during the worst of times. That happened in humans and there wasn't any way for the side effects of the T-324 to be reversed or removed. As for one Toon who had T-324 in him, Baron Von Rotten, a once very nice Toon who was involved in an accident when he was around town. The impact of whatever hit Baron on the head caused him to transform from a very nice, generous, and honest Toon to a malicious, evil, and uncaring toon man."

I nodded and made another mental note.

"Two more questions about the T-324 and then, I'll leave you be with whatever you're working on." I said. "What is in the T-324?"

"Inside the T-324 is DNA from Toons." Yen Sid replied. "Although Toons are drawn and painted, every Toon has a bit of DNA. Toon DNA works like human DNA but instead of breaking real easily or cease their functioning in extremely hot or cold temperature, toon DNA functions like magnets, things that are elastic, rubber, steel, and putty. How toon DNA functions explains the reason how Toons are able to endure the enormous amounts of physical abuse. For example, the part when I mentioned that toon DNA functions like elastic things would explain how Toons can be stretched without hurting themselves."

I nodded as Yen Sid placed the vial back on the bookshelf.

"I said that T-324 is made up of toon DNA and it's rarely used in humans. T-324 only does its job when it's injected into the human." Yen Sid continued. "If a human physically touches it, the T-324 doesn't work. Once the T-324 is injected, it immediately travels through the human bloodstream. All of the toon DNA integrates with the human DNA and the T-324 acts like it's creating a Toon inside the human, mixing up Toon traits and human biological information, and even give the human a Toon's instincts."

_Okay, this is really interesting. _I thought.

"All right." I said. "One last question but let explain this first. Until later last night and later this afternoon, I had food poisoning after eating green beans straight from a can, despite of the beans being a long way away from expiring. The doctor told me that if I drank enough fluids, then I would feel better by this morning or if things get worse, I would stop feeling sick in two or five days. I got better by noon and I got to thinking. For a long time, I've faced a lot of sicknesses that an average person would experience, symptoms and all, but after two hours or so, depending on what I'm having to experience, I would feel better. But bruises and scars are some exceptions. Would this sort of thing have anything to do with the T-324?"

Yen Sid nodded.

"Just like the dog tag around your neck," he began, "the T-324 helps and protects you whenever you're around danger and of course, when you're around Judge Doom. If you scrape your knee after a fall, the T-324 immediately goes to your knee and the scratches will be gone in three and half days' time. Bruises and scars are a little difficult for the T-324 to handle so the T-324 can either linger in a bruise or scar make them go away very, very slowly or it does a very small healing effect and leaves the scar or bruise alone. With the T-324, you, Tommy, and Cressida are practically invincible and a little immortal in a way or two. As you continue to wear the dog tag, the way that you see things, the powers from the T-324 and the powers that you gain slowly get stored in the tag and it helps you control the powers when you receive them. Once the energy from the things that I've mentioned is built up inside the tag and stored for a certain period of time, one day, that energy will be released and save many lives for those who are on your side."

_Whoa. _I thought. _Geez, this is really amazing._

Okay, all of my questions are answered.

Once Tommy comes back home, I'll tell him all about my meeting and what I've discovered.

Man, Tommy and I have a lot to learn and discover as we continue our lives.

…..

**Tommy:**

Birds chirping, steady breathing, and I'm slowly coming back from my sleeping fantasy.

"AGGH! SPIDER! VERMIN!" Spiker exclaimed loudly.

I sat up and I watch Spiker…swat the spider web with a fly swatter!

"NO, WAIT!" James exclaimed.

As Spiker called for Sponge, James hopped off his bed and ran to the window. He cupped his hands, placed them on the window, and slid them off and ran away from the window and Spiker, who in the process was beginning to hit me and James with her fly swatter.

"KILL IT!" Spiker exclaimed. "KILL IT, KILL IT!"

Then, Sponge bursts into the room with an old-fashioned spray gun. She accidentally pushed the handle of the gun and something got sprayed out of the nozzle, making James and me blind for a brief second and bumping into Sponge.

The next thing that I knew that I was sliding down the stairs with Sponge and James. We were all grunting and exclaiming in pain and surprise.

James and I landed on the floor with a THUD and Sponge hit the floor so hard that the house shake. I'm kidding. It was just an exaggeration.

Anyway, after sitting up, James opened his hands and gasped.

"Where's the spider?!" I exclaimed.

Sponge screamed in fear and James and I turned around.

"Get it! GET IT!" She exclaimed as… the spider crawled on her face.

Man, that's going to give me nightmares.

Spiker came down the stairs as Sponge continued to exclaim 'Get it' in fear.

As Spiker brought the fly swatter up in the air, the spider LEAPED off of Sponge's face and watched it land five feet away from me and James.

"Come on, James!" I whispered. "Let's get the spider away from here!"

"Right!" James said.

The fly swatter slapped Sponge on her face as James cupped his hands and carried the spider off the floor.

"You hit me on the face!" Sponge exclaimed.

James and I headed out of the house as Sponge exclaimed, "You hit me in the face!"

"OH, DO SHUT UP!" Spiker exclaimed angrily.

James and I ran out of the house, down the hilly slopes, and towards a stone fence.

"Still got the spider?" I asked.

"Yeah, still got it." James replied while catching his breath.

James and I knelt down to our knees and we both began to catch our breaths.

"Go on." James said to the Spider. "Get out of here."

He opened his hands and placed his right hand in a big gap in between two rectangular stones.

"Get away as far away from this place as you possibly can." I said to the spider as it crawled off of James's hand and into the gap.

"Oh, I wish you and I could get away from this place, Tommy." James lamented.

I patted James on the back in sympathy.

"Same here, James. *sigh* Same here." I said.

"What's stopping you?" A scratchy voice asked, making me and James jump in surprise.

James and I looked up and saw a man (with a raggedy outfit consisting of buttons, tiny pocket watches, some pieces of string and cord and clothes made from a black, raggedy fabric. On the man's dirty, callused hands were fingerless gloves with a few tears) leaning on the fence.

"Oh, don't be frightened, James and Tommy." The man said. "I mean you two no harm."

James and I gasped while my eyes widened to the size of tomatoes.

"How did you know my name is James?" James asked the man.

"And how did you know that my name is Tommy?" I also asked.

The man chuckled softly.

"I know more than just your names." He said.

The man climbed off the fence and he bends down to his knees as James and I sat down.

"What would you two say that answer to all your troubles is right here…" The man began and out of thin air, he pulls out…the paper 'balloon' that James and I made the other night. "…inside this little bag?"

James and I gasped.

"Hey! That's my-!" James exclaimed.

"Of course, it is." The Man said.

"But how did you-?" I asked.

"Go on, James and Tommy. Have a look inside the bag."

James and I looked inside the small opening of the bag. Just as we were about to stop looking in it, a green light glowed inside the bag.

Tiny, glowing green, squeaking creatures about the size and shape as chopped fusilli pasta pieces squirmed inside the bag. What the heck-?

"There's more magic in them things than in all the rest of the world put together." The Man said.

I'm not sure if the usage of 'them' instead of 'those' was an unintentional grammatical error or if that's the way the man talked.

"But what the heck are those things?" I asked the Man.

"What are they?" James asked.

After a brief pause, the Man said,

"Crocodile tongues."

My eyebrows rose up in confusion and my eyes grew really wide at the sound of the Man's answer.

"Tongues?" James and I asked in unison.

"One thousand long slimy crocodile tongues," The Man said, "boiled in the skull of the dead witch for twenty days and twenty nights." He paused for a second, as if he were taking a deep breath in. "Add the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a parrot, and three spoonfuls of sugar."

Okay, either the Man is a very good con-artist or actor or if he's very good at reeling people in as he talked really fast and kept his face straight as he was described the tongues.

"Stew for a week…" The Man continued and closed his left eye, "…let the moon…" He opened his left eye, leaving it a cloudy and milky white color, causing me and James to gasp in fright, "…do the rest."

The Man closed his left eye and it returns back to its original form before it was cloudy and milky.

"Have 'em," The Man said, "and marvelous things will happen."

"What sort of things?" I asked.

"Things…even you never dreamt of."

"Like what?" James and I asked in unison.

"Well…like…you two will never be miserable again." The Man replied. "And you are miserable, aren't you, James and Tommy? You two weren't mean to be, you know?"

James and I nodded with confusion and suspicion.

"And that place that you two are dreaming of…it's not as far away as you think." The Man said.

Then with incredible strength, the Man punched a stone and it fell out of its place in the fence.

James and I looked through the empty space where the stone was once sitting. The fog transformed into the shape of…

"NEW YORK CITY." James gasped in awe.

Whoa.

"And it'll be that much closer…" The Man said and appeared on the other side of the fence. "…once you take the first step."

"But how?" I asked.

"That doesn't any sense." James said.

The Man placed his right finger on his right temple.

"Not up here, it doesn't." He scoffed. "But the answers are in here…" The Man points his finger at James's heart and somehow, he climbs over the stone fence while his finger was still pointing at where James's heart is. "…and the magic is here in the bag."

_Okay, I kind of see where this is going. _I thought.

"So, James and Tommy," The Man said with nervousness in his voice, "what'll it be?"

I looked at James, who seemed to be very hesitant about choosing either the crocodile tongues (Roald Dahl comes up with the most insane ideas for a children's book) or continue to live the rest of his life in misery and abuse.

I've made my decision, even though it sounds really stupid to choose.

"I pick the tongues." I said. "What do you think, James?"

James stared at the bag as the Man and I looked at him with impatience and concern.

Finally, without saying a word, James reached for the 'bag' of tongues and the Man squashed the bag on James's hand.

"Okay, now listen to me, James and Tommy," The Man said, "don't let the tongues get away because if they do, they'll work their magic on whatever or WHOEVER they meet first. You understand?"

James and I nodded our heads.

All of the sudden, with a BOOM, a WHOOSH, and a gust of wind, the Man disappeared like a magician in a magic…but after a brief second later, the Man said,

"GOOD."

Then, just like that, the Man…was nowhere…to be seen, leaving me and James with the 'bag' full of creepy, glowing, fusilli-like creatures full of untold magic.

Who was that guy?

"Wow." I whispered.

"WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE?!" Spiker exclaimed.

James and I gasped.

"Let's go back up to the house." I said.

Then, James and I took off running while James was holding the 'bag' as careful as he can be.

_What kind of magic do the tongues possess? _I thought_. Good magic? Bad magic? What else, if any, do the tongues-?_

My thoughts were interrupted by James grunting in surprise as we were about to pass the dead tree (which still remains rooted into the rocky ground).

I turn around and I saw that James had tripped. Not only that but THE TONGUES WERE ESCAPING!

"James, get the tongues!" I said.

James and I tried our very best…or maybe very worst…to catch the tongues but before we could even reach one, the tongues would crawl or hop in to the ground and disappear. It was like Whak-A-Mole gone, except we're dealing with crocodile tongues and not plastic mechanical moles with hard hats and mining tools.

But at last, all of the tongues disappear into the ground. Not a single one was left.

"There they are!" Spiker exclaimed.

James and I looked at Spiker and Sponge…who were still dressed in their night clothes and probably still frightened about the spider.

"GET UP, YOU LITTLE WORMS!" Sponge exclaimed while grasping on to the tree in fright. "WE SENT YOU OUT HERE TO KILL A SPIDER!"

"Not to laze about!" Spiker said.

"We weren't lazing about." James said. "I tripped and Tommy had to help me."

Sponge gasped in horror and disgust.

"HOW DARE YOU DISAGREE WITH US?!" She exclaimed.

"Beat them, Sponge!" Spiker exclaimed.

Spiker and Sponge walk from behind the tree. Spiker grabbed me and James by our shoulders and I was getting prepared to face a round of physical abuse from the Sponge.

But Sponge sighed in exhaustion.

"It's too early." She whined.

"Well!" Spiker said. "That makes you two the luckiest boys alive. Now, go inside and get dressed!"

Then, Spiker made me and James walk up to the house with her while she still held on to our shoulders and shirts.

Sponge yawned for a brief second and then…she exclaimed,

"SPIKER, LOOK! A PEACH!"

Spiker, James, and I stop walking.

_A what? _I thought.

"A what?" Spiker asked, repeating my thoughts.

"A _PEACH!" _Sponge exclaimed again. "There! On that BRANCH!"

I looked at where Sponge was pointing…and sure enough, there was a small, bright little peach hanging from a thick branch.

_Well, I'll be. _I thought.

"Why, that old tree's never had so much as a blossom on it!" Spiker exclaimed. "Let alone a-!"

Then, Spiker looked at where the peach was hanging.

"Well, I'll be blowed (Really? Another grammatical error from a grown-up?)!" Spiker exclaimed and walked towards the tree. "There really is a peach there. A nice big one, too!"

"How can we get it?" Sponge whispered.

Then, she and Spiker looked at each other and smiled.

"The boys." The aunts said in unison.

Sponge turned towards me and James.

"Now, you two be good little boys," she said, "and climb up and get that peach for your dear aunties."

James and I walked to the tree. I got down on my arms and knees, acting as a footstool for James.

"Can we eat it?" James asked Sponge as he stepped on me.

"Of course, we can!" Sponge replied. "We'll share it! Me and your Aunt Spiker!"

Am I the only who thinks that Sponge's exclamation defined 'greedy'?

After a few seconds, James climbed up and I got back on my feet. I watched James to make sure that he wasn't going to fall and hurt himself.

"Be careful, James." I said.

"I will." He replied.

"WAIT!" Spiker exclaimed in fright.

"What? What?" Sponge asked.

"It's…it's growing!"

Wait, what did she just say?

"The boy?" Sponge asked.

"NO, THE PEACH, YOU IDIOT!" Spiker exclaimed.

A squishing sound was heard and I looked at the peach.

One side of the peach was bigger than the other and it made the peach as big and wide as a pear.

Oh, my gosh! It is growing!

"Get off! Get down!" Sponge exclaimed and tried to pull James off the branch.

"But I won't get hurt." James said as he reached for the peach.

"James, you have to get down." I said. "The peach is growing and you need to get off."

Then, with force, Sponge pulled James off the branch and placed him on the ground.

"Are you okay?" I asked James.

He nodded.

"What a peach!" Spiker exclaimed. "What a peach!"

James and I looked at the peach.

As if somebody was using a pump, the peach expanded the size of a chair. But the peach didn't stop there. It continued to expand.

"LOOK, SPIKER, IT'S STILL GROWING!" Sponge exclaimed.

"I'm not blind, you dolt!" Spiker exclaimed. "I can see it myself!"

Then, the peach was as big as the tree, causing the tree to tilt towards us as the peach continued to expand.

"LOOK AT IT GO!" Spiker exclaimed. "IT'S A MIRACLE!"

The peach continued to expand and it was almost as big as a house.

Then, Spiker, Sponge, James, and I backed away from the peach when it became too big to be the size of a house.

Finally, the peach stopped growing.

Oh my goodness.

For some time, Spiker and Sponge would complain about how useless the tree was (I know because James told me.). Now, here we are. A peach grew on a branch and it's bigger than the house on the top of the hill.

Then, I realized what the Man said. It was the magic of the crocodile tongues that made the peach grow in to an enormous size.

"Marvelous things will happen." James whispered. "Just like the man said."

"Shut up, you little grub." Spiker whispered while admiring the peach. "This has nothing to do with you or the other boy."

"So?" I asked.

"So keep away from it!"

James and I frowned at Spiker.

Sponge walked towards the peach.

"Can you smell that, Spikey?" She exclaimed. "It smells delicious!"

Just as Sponge was about to take a bite, Spiker stopped her.

"No!" Spiker exclaimed. "It smells like…money."

I face-palmed myself, clearly disgusted by that devious and diabolical money-making scheme.


End file.
